POWER PLAY: Kash Patel Tells FBI Employees to Ignore Musk

To be sure, there are no heroes in this discussion. There is a consensus outside the Trump administration that even without regard to whether FBI Director Kash Patel has the requisite experience to lead the FBI, it shouldn’t be a political appointment and thus Director Wray, who was appointed by Donald Trump, should have been left alone to finish his term. So this is less about supporting FBI Director Patel and more about whether others leading other departments will follow his lead, and hoping they do. To the extent that sounds highly supportive, so be it. He took a surprisingly big step in a critical matter and others need to follow. Call it brave… for now.

Earlier on Saturday, Elon Musk tweeted that he was about to email “every single federal employee” and that they were to list five things they had done the week before, presumably to justify their continued employ. Failure to respond would be seen as a resignation.

Here’s the email that federal workers are receiving tonight, asking them to list five things they’ve accomplished in the last week. DOGE czar Elon Musk tweeted that failure to comply will be “taken as a resignation.”

— Mike Sisak (@mikesisak.bsky.social) 2025-02-22T23:04:41.445Z

And the response was immediate, as summarized by Grok:

The move sparked immediate backlash. Unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), called it “cruel and disrespectful,” vowing to challenge any resulting terminations legally. Some employees, especially those handling classified work or on leave, raised practical concerns about compliance, while others saw it as a tactic to pressure resignations. Legal experts have questioned its validity, noting federal law requires voluntary resignations, not implied ones, and past Merit Systems Protection Board rulings might not support this approach.

And up with this, Patel would not put. Again, we’re not in the business of finding heroes here but people could do much worse than following Patel’s lead and, we probably should admit, this takes some guts:

👀

— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) 2025-02-23T02:13:54.343Z

Now, what if the Treasury Secretary – arguably one of the few cabinet posts that have more raw political power than the FBI Director, sent out a similar email? What about the Secretary of State – Would Rubio stand up for his people? It is not like they don’t have similar procedures at both Treasury and State. They all do. It will be very interesting to see if there is a zoo-break here and whether or not several other leaders will simply tell their employees to “pause” the button. Of course, if the President came out and said that they must all do it, then they must all do it. But forcing Trump to own what looks to all the world like an amateur-manager stunt would have merit in and of itself. Federal employees know that they work from president to president (Though most, by far, are not political). They do not sign up to get run over by young, inexperienced programmers with DOGE.

EDIT TO ADD (Sunday 9:00 a.m. 2-23-25) It appears that other departments are starting to follow along, at least those involved with national security:

Agencies across government are telling their employees not to respond to Musk/OPM's email asking them to list their accomplishment's in the past week.

One agency's leadership thought it might be a phishing scam. From our story (link below): pic.twitter.com/K2z9uGQlKb

— Eric Katz (@EricM_Katz) February 23, 2025

And Another:

The State Dept leadership, like the FBI, pushes back on Musk’s performance emails sent out across the US government. Tibor Nagy, Acting Undersecretary for Management (M), in an email to staff last night says no employee is obligated to reply and the Dept will handle the response. pic.twitter.com/57IX7FIuSU

— Hümeyra Pamuk (@humeyra_pamuk) February 23, 2025

There is another level here. It seems as though Patel and Musk have a bit of a history. Again from Grok:

The context here is a broader tension within the Trump administration’s early days, where Musk’s DOGE initiative aims to aggressively cut government size, while Patel, sworn in as FBI director just the day prior on February 21, appears to prioritize internal control over his agency’s processes. This has sparked speculation about potential friction between Patel and Musk, especially given Patel’s past criticisms of Musk during the Biden years over data privacy and government contracts.

Not to get too crazy and not to lionize Patel, but he is the one guy in the Trump administration who likely could make Musk’s life kind of interesting. To be sure, Musk is likely untouchable… Sort of. It is conceivable that Trump would protect Musk without regard to anything, but that still leaves Musk’s companies, and close employees, somewhat open to investigations. We have seen no reluctance at all to use criminal investigations as a means to influence the political landscape – that’s not good, but it is reality, and Patel is the one in charge of the Bureau that can cause the most fuss. Traditionally, the FBI Director has far more independence that any other Executive Branch department head. Put it this way, if there is anyone in the federal government other than Trump, who could stand up to Musk, it would be Patel. And look what we have.

Now we must watch for two things. Does Trump immediately jump in to have Musk’s back? He should. He should not be covering Musk’s every move but then fading to the background when people start jockeying for power. A good leader would come right out and say, “No, listen to Musk!” But one wonders. It is not really Trump’s style to sort things out amongst squabbling supporters. The other thing to look for, of course, is whether Rubio or even Bondi might make a similar move. It is unlikely that Trump wants to fire any of these people that he just now put in place. They will never have more soft power than they do right now. If they were ever going to take a stand for their employees, if they were ever going to assert their authority over Musk, it would be now… Or never.

I have to admit, I am a bit shocked and, a bit impressed. We can be absolutely certain that the lifers at the FBI did not appreciate having their director shown the door due to a political change. And they damn sure never like having a virtual outsider brought in. But Patel can go an awful long way in earning some of their trust back by putting his foot down here, as he’s done. It is interesting. Watch where this goes.

God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter-X at @JasonMiciak and please follow me on Bluesky.

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