Elon Musk angered thousands of American citizens after using X polls (formerly Twitter) to make political decisions in his new role in the United States government.
The controversy began last Saturday (21), when Musk, who received a position from President Donald Trump as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), announced that federal employees would receive an email asking “what they accomplished last week.”
Musk said he would understand a lack of response as a “resignation.” As a result, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union representing government workers, criticized the measure as “cruel and disrespectful” and said it would “challenge any illegal dismissals.”
Musk responded by saying that “the bar is very low” for a satisfactory response. “A large number of good responses have already been received. These are the people who should be considered for promotion,” he said.
But now, it seems that Musk wants to let his social media followers have the final word on whether federal employees should have even received such an email in the first place, which has drawn a lot of criticism from internet users.
Should all federal employees be required to send a short email with some basic bullet points about what they accomplished last week?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2025
“Musk’s poll is an abuse of power, harassing federal employees instead of fixing real problems. Wasteful and authoritarian,” commented a user on X.
“You’re asking all federal employees to spend an hour writing an email and report to you in general, which will be hundreds of thousands of hours of federal work time wasted,” argued another.
“I thought waste was so obvious and easy to cut that you could do it with a chainsaw from a distance? Who’s going to read all these emails? Wasting work time. Inefficient. Unfortunately, Elon’s ego killed his potential,” added the internet user.
Photo and video: X @elonmusk. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
