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Over the weekend , Elon Musksurveyedhis followers on 10 — the chopine he expend $ 44 billion to bribe — asking whether federal employees should be required to send his team an electronic mail with a list of five thing they carry out this week . With the yes votes totaling over 70 % , Musk followed through . Federal employeesreceived an emailfrom the U.S. Office of Personnel Management ( OPM ) this weekend , requesting their hebdomadal list of accomplishments by 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday .
“ logical with [ President Donald Trump ’s ] pedagogy , all federal employees will shortly receive an e-mail requesting to empathise what they got done last workweek , ” Muskwroteon X. “ bankruptcy to respond will be rent as a resignation . ”
With millions of employee across the federal government , theDOGE - run email computer address and the content of the e-mail were bound to leak . As federal employee are threatened with lose their Job , hoi polloi on social media program likeReddit , TikTok , Threads , andBlueskyare calling on each other to spam the now - public electronic mail address with hokum .
This is a common maneuver of online resistance when something like a controversial form for public comment or electronic mail address gets out .
In one case , so many people get off the all over script of the “ Bee Movie ” — arecurring net joke — to an anti - trans“snitch form”in Missouri that the confidential information line was direct offline . People answer similarly to aTexas state inboxtracking sex marker changes on driver ’s permission , as well as an anti - trans bathroomcomplaint formin Utah .
This online vigilantism sometimes coalesces within especial community , like the K - dada fandom . In 2020 , Dallas police quest that mass send them video of illegal activity taking station during objection following the police killing of George Floyd ; instead , fan of Korean star like BTSspammed the police department ’s appwith nonsensicalfancamvideos .
Trump ’s detractors have employed these tactics since the first week of his term , when his administration set updedicated electronic mail accountsrequesting that employees report noncompliance with the president ’s executive orders to dismantle diversity , equity , and cellular inclusion ( DEI ) political program . Workers were peril with imprecise “ adverse consequences ” if they deduct information about efforts to “ obscure the connection ” between DEI initiatives and administration contracts .
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Though OPM is a long - resist government activity agency , these specific electronic mail name and address are newfangled . Federal employee first received an e-mail from the OPM ’s HR email speech in January , testing whether it could be used to get through all governance workers in one electronic mail eruption . This move sparked a form - actionlawsuit from two whistleblowerswho claim it dishonor federal secrecy law to create this trade name - new email host without following establish security department measures .
These security protocol are in place for a reasonableness . In 2015 , the OPM was hack on , compromise sensitive data from security clearance background signal checks for21.5 million people . That include the Social Security numbers of each of these individuals , as well as biometric data from 1.1 million hoi polloi . Musk ’s DOGE team , meanwhile , has been grantedunprecedented power and spacious accessto these political science systems with slight electric resistance .
It ’s ill-defined how in effect DOGE will be deterred by this mass junk e-mail campaign . Since ordinary people do not have .gov email addresses , it ’s possible that Musk ’s team could just filter their inboxes for governance - only electronic mail address . The inbox could also burst under the sheer volume of mail it will receive ; if Musk ’s DOGE squad is using a strong-arm waiter , then the amount of data point it can contain is finite .
Though it ’s possible these campaign could be futile , people who resist Musk ’s policies are not deterred — after all , it does n’t take very long to copy and pastethe complete script of the “ Bee Movie”into an email .
