DOD Orders Civilian Employees to Comply with Musk’s Productivity Email

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has directed the Department of Defense (DOD)’s civilian workforce to comply with a productivity email request from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Fox News reports.

This reverses an earlier directive from the DOD instructing employees to disregard the request.

The email, seeking five bullet points outlining employees’ accomplishments, aligns with a broader initiative from Musk, who is heading up DOGE, to improve government efficiency.

Hegseth announced the change in policy via a video message released on Sunday.

“Our civilian patriots who dedicate themselves to defending this nation working for the Department of Defense are critical to our national security,” Hegseth said. “As we work to restore focus on DOD’s core warfighting mission under President Trump’s leadership, we recognize that we cannot accomplish that mission without the strong and important contributions of our civilian workforce.”

Musk, who shared Hegseth’s video on X, responded with appreciation, writing “Much appreciated @SecDef Hegseth!” accompanied by a saluting emoji and an American flag emoji.

A memorandum signed by Hegseth on Friday instructed all DOD civilian employees to be prepared to respond to an email expected to be sent out by the DOD on Monday. The memo directs employees to reply to the email within 48 hours, detailing their five key accomplishments from the previous week and including their supervisors in the response.

Hegseth explained in the video that the collected responses would be compiled within the department to satisfy the requirement issued by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

The OPM initially sent out a similar email request last weekend, also seeking five bullet points of accomplishments. However, the DOD’s Office of Personnel and Readiness initially instructed its civilian workforce to ignore the request.

The DOD is now taking a different approach after collaborating with OPM to gain clearer guidance on the expectations.

“The Department of Defense initially paused this directive … but now requires all DOD civilian employees to submit five bullets on their previous week’s achievements,” Hegseth stated in his memorandum.

He emphasized that Monday’s email is one that DOD employees should respond to, while cautioning them not to include sensitive or classified information in their responses.

Hegseth further stated that non-compliance with the directive may lead to further review.