| Elon Musk may finally have found his limits: The Trump loyalists now in charge of some of the government departments he’s looking to slash. After a mass emailing to federal employees over the weekend ordering them to submit a five-bullet-point account of their work by midnight tonight or else, the new heads of several government departments said, essentially, we’ll handle this ourselves, thank you very much. FBI director Kash Patel, on the job for a single day, told staff to “pause any responses.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said any responses would be coordinated, “when and if required.” Employees at Homeland Security, run by Kristi Noem, received an email late yesterday saying management would respond on behalf of all workers. At the Agriculture Department, employees were told a response to the email is “voluntary and not required,” Bloomberg Government reports.  Musk holds up a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Photographer: Will Oliver/EPA It’s unclear whether employees at other government departments are still on the hook. The Washington Post reported this afternoon, citing unnamed sources, that the Office of Personnel Management has told agency leaders that they can ignore Musk’s public threat that failure to comply “will be taken as a resignation.” For weeks, Musk has touted the achievements of his Department of Government Efficiency in winnowing the ranks of federal employees, trimming office space and ending aid contracts, doubling down on the mandate he was given by President Donald Trump. But his careening attempted makeover of the federal bureaucracy has caused whiplash and confusion within the federal workforce. Several departments, including Energy and Agriculture, have reversed terminations of some critical employees – think nuclear bomb experts – swept out in mass firings. His efforts also have generated multiple lawsuits. Unions representing thousands of federal employees sued the Trump administration over the “what did you do last week” email. Other lawsuits have challenged efforts to cut the government workforce and spending programs, as well as the constitutionality of DOGE and its access to government computer systems. It was in a filing in one of the lawsuits that the White House said Musk doesn’t technically work for the Department of Government Efficiency and has no formal authority to make decisions for the government. Trump, who has urged Musk to be “more aggressive,” doesn’t seem to have any second thoughts. Today he called the demand for the memo a “genius” move. — Jamie Tarabay | 
