Feb 25 2025
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Elon Musk Demands Air Traffic Controllers Justify Their Work

By Leila

a man holding a chainsaw

US Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy has instructed employees under him, including air traffic controllers, to respond to an email sent by Elon Musk’s DOGE team warning them to justify their employment or face termination. Meanwhile, other agencies are not complying with Musk’s directive.

Air Traffic Controllers Instructed To Justify Their Employment To Elon Musk

Over the weekend, Elon Musk, who President Trump appointed to run the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) without Senate approval, sent out an email to federal employees asking what they did last week:

a screenshot of a message

Explaining the email, Musk said, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”

 

(had that arrived in my inbox, I would have simply marked it as phishing and moved on with my day)

I won’t live in fear. The point of these emails is not to eliminate waste, but to assert power and to show who is boss. I don’t play that game and I won’t kiss the ring. This email is about putting fear in the heart of every federal employee but no one named Elon Musk has the power to determine who is useful and who is not and this juvenile email from a drugged-up Mephistopheles is counterproductive.

Like the majority of Americans, I am quite happy for a forensic accountant to audit agencies with a fine-tooth comb because it does appear there is waste…and any such waste is unacceptable. There’s likely graft and corruption too. Let’s all agree to attack that because our budget deficit and national debt are alarming.

But I view these sorts of intimidation exercises as muscle-flexing by an emperor with no clothes, chasing optics and not the sort of real reform that will make a positive difference. Real reform will take hard work…it will take real people to dig deeply.

And this folks is why I now have such low regard for Duffy, who wastes his time arguing with Hilary Clinton online or posting hollow tweets like a sleazy politician instead of actually getting the job done. No, there is no time for such tomfoolery.

Hmm, what did Air Traffic Controllers do during the last week? Kept our airspace safe. They are overworked enough – we don’t need to assign them busy work.

Meanwhile, other department heads have pushed back on Musk’s order. Tulsi Gabbard, who was confirmed as Director of National Intelligence last week, told her staff, “Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, IC [intelligence community] employees should not respond to the OPM email.”

Kash Patel, who now heads the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Department of Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem also told their staff to disregard the email.

But on Monday afternoon, Musk sent out a fresh demand:

And Trump backed him, telling reporters at the White House this afternoon, “I thought it was great…There was a lot of genius in sending it. We’re trying to find out if people are working.”

Let the turf wars begin…this is not going to end well.

As laudable as I find the elimination of government waste as a policy goal, the idea that an unelected dark horse and his team of minions using dynamite instead of a broom to sweep away that which is unnecessary is disproportionate and only makes a bad matter worse.

image: @elonmusk / X

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