4 ms·

Elon Musk admits email to government workers was a ruse

36 points by taimurkazmi 2y ago

Terr_ 2y ago
Downplaying it as a ruse is like describing a mugging as a property dispute. Musk (1) impersonated a manager to (2) declare a fraudulent employment policy in order to (3) threaten employees and create a hostile working environment with the goal of (4) constructive dismissal. P.S. Item #1 may not apply depending on on some other court cases, where the Trump administration is refusing to say exactly WTF Musk's role actually is, probably because no matter which mutually-exclusive thing they pick they've still broken the law.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > P.S. Item #1 may not apply depending on on some other court cases, where the Trump administration is refusing to say exactly WTF Musk's role actually is No, they've said in court that he is a White House advisor with no decision-making role (not even at the recently-renamed US DOGE Service, which—despite the public portrayal of him as (originally co-)head of DOGE, he is not formally involved in).
  - tailefer 2y ago
    As usual, Trump can't keep the story straight. "I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge," Trump told an audience of investors and company executives in Miami. [0] So is Trump lying? Confused? Senile? And the pushback to Musk by most of his administration didn't take the form of "this guy is just an advisor". They acted as if Musk were in charge, no matter what Trump tells a judge. [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-appears-contradict-white-house-says-elon-musk-charge-doge-2025-02-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-appears-contradict-wh...
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  I believe that technically email was sent out by OPM, so not sure your #1 is correct. Your other points stand though. Edit: However the "failure to respond is a resignation" part was Elon and so yeah, maybe your #1 point stands as well.
duxup 2y ago
This seems more like “lol I was just joking”….
- Terr_ 2y ago
  At this point I want to fight fire with fire: "You know, there are a lot of countries, very nice countries, where someone tried to become a dictator, and then they caught and executed him in a horrible horrible way. The family also, imprisoned from being terrible people. Do you think we'd do that in America someday? Just joking, just joking, nobody would do that, it's fun to think about, isn't it? It really triggers those snowflakes. Let's all talk about exactly what would happen in visceral detail, you know, as a joke."
  - quantified 2y ago
    We can all point out that the 2nd amendment is cherished.
- clipsy 2y ago
  Bingo. Trump and the MAGA movement more broadly have made extensive use of this strategy: do something ridiculous to test the waters, and then claim you were just joking if the response is too harsh.
ronbenton 2y ago
It strikes me that there are so many random requests coming from all over the place that this would be a great opportunity for a large scale phishing attack posing as Elon/DOGE.
JojoFatsani 2y ago
Definitely not a ruse. I worked for a startup run by a wannabe Jobs/Musk type about a decade ago and when the budget started getting tight they pulled the same playbook: demanding unreasonable hours, putting hard working people on the spot about what they do, summarily firing all contractors etc.. it was a bad time and the C Suite eventually got fired.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  What sort of startup has C suite?
  - jfengel 2y ago
    The kind run by a wannabe Jobs/Musk type.
drawkward 2y ago
He is calling it a ruse because other Trump appointees told their employees that Elon can go pound sand, and he couldnt bear to face the fact that he got told no. God what a fucking man-child. The most insecure human I have even witnessed. It is embarrassing.
apical_dendrite 2y ago
I've been reading the air traffic controller subreddit (r/atc) and it really shows how unbelievably stupid and uninformed Elon is. The air traffic controllers don't have government laptops. They don't use workstations with email. So in order to respond to this email, if they weren't working today, they had to come into the office and get paid overtime to respond. If they were working today, they had to find time and a laptop to respond (and not do their job controlling air traffic). And the whole management chain must have spent the whole day trying to figure out how to deal with all of this since it was not thought out at all. So the Department of Government Efficiency wasted a ton of time and money getting air traffic controllers to email what they're working on, which is utterly pointless since everything air traffic controllers do is already recorded.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  It's not an exaggeration to say that the one e-mail has cost the government millions of dollars just in the man-hours of randomized employees trying to figure out whether to reply and WTF needs being said.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - apical_dendrite 2y ago
    If you tell someone they're going to be fired if they don't send the email, and they don't have work email on their phone, then they'll drive to the office to send it.
  - black_puppydog 2y ago
    haaaahahah, yes, let's get every single employee a macbook (or better yet I guess, the soon-to-be-announced TeslaBook) whether or not they need one. Just so that Elmo can breathe down their neck any day he wants. Or let's just have every ATC book their personal device into their employer's system. Ya know, because efficiency. Edit: after re-reading it, my money would be on "xBook" or "xPad"

36 points by taimurkazmi 2y ago

Downplaying it as a ruse is like describing a mugging as a property dispute. Musk (1) impersonated a manager to (2) declare a fraudulent employment policy in order to (3) threaten employees and create a hostile working environment with the goal of (4) constructive dismissal. P.S. Item #1 may not apply depending on on some other court cases, where the Trump administration is refusing to say exactly WTF Musk's role actually is, probably because no matter which mutually-exclusive thing they pick they've still broken the law.

dragonwriter 2y ago
> P.S. Item #1 may not apply depending on on some other court cases, where the Trump administration is refusing to say exactly WTF Musk's role actually is No, they've said in court that he is a White House advisor with no decision-making role (not even at the recently-renamed US DOGE Service, which—despite the public portrayal of him as (originally co-)head of DOGE, he is not formally involved in).
- tailefer 2y ago
  As usual, Trump can't keep the story straight. "I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge," Trump told an audience of investors and company executives in Miami. [0] So is Trump lying? Confused? Senile? And the pushback to Musk by most of his administration didn't take the form of "this guy is just an advisor". They acted as if Musk were in charge, no matter what Trump tells a judge. [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-appears-contradict-white-house-says-elon-musk-charge-doge-2025-02-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-appears-contradict-wh...
insane_dreamer 2y ago
I believe that technically email was sent out by OPM, so not sure your #1 is correct. Your other points stand though. Edit: However the "failure to respond is a resignation" part was Elon and so yeah, maybe your #1 point stands as well.

duxup 2y ago

This seems more like “lol I was just joking”….

Terr_ 2y ago
At this point I want to fight fire with fire: "You know, there are a lot of countries, very nice countries, where someone tried to become a dictator, and then they caught and executed him in a horrible horrible way. The family also, imprisoned from being terrible people. Do you think we'd do that in America someday? Just joking, just joking, nobody would do that, it's fun to think about, isn't it? It really triggers those snowflakes. Let's all talk about exactly what would happen in visceral detail, you know, as a joke."
- quantified 2y ago
  We can all point out that the 2nd amendment is cherished.
clipsy 2y ago
Bingo. Trump and the MAGA movement more broadly have made extensive use of this strategy: do something ridiculous to test the waters, and then claim you were just joking if the response is too harsh.

ronbenton 2y ago

It strikes me that there are so many random requests coming from all over the place that this would be a great opportunity for a large scale phishing attack posing as Elon/DOGE.

JojoFatsani 2y ago

Definitely not a ruse. I worked for a startup run by a wannabe Jobs/Musk type about a decade ago and when the budget started getting tight they pulled the same playbook: demanding unreasonable hours, putting hard working people on the spot about what they do, summarily firing all contractors etc.. it was a bad time and the C Suite eventually got fired.

dzhiurgis 2y ago
What sort of startup has C suite?
- jfengel 2y ago
  The kind run by a wannabe Jobs/Musk type.

drawkward 2y ago

He is calling it a ruse because other Trump appointees told their employees that Elon can go pound sand, and he couldnt bear to face the fact that he got told no. God what a fucking man-child. The most insecure human I have even witnessed. It is embarrassing.

apical_dendrite 2y ago

I've been reading the air traffic controller subreddit (r/atc) and it really shows how unbelievably stupid and uninformed Elon is. The air traffic controllers don't have government laptops. They don't use workstations with email. So in order to respond to this email, if they weren't working today, they had to come into the office and get paid overtime to respond. If they were working today, they had to find time and a laptop to respond (and not do their job controlling air traffic). And the whole management chain must have spent the whole day trying to figure out how to deal with all of this since it was not thought out at all. So the Department of Government Efficiency wasted a ton of time and money getting air traffic controllers to email what they're working on, which is utterly pointless since everything air traffic controllers do is already recorded.

Terr_ 2y ago
It's not an exaggeration to say that the one e-mail has cost the government millions of dollars just in the man-hours of randomized employees trying to figure out whether to reply and WTF needs being said.
dzhiurgis 2y ago
[flagged]
- apical_dendrite 2y ago
  If you tell someone they're going to be fired if they don't send the email, and they don't have work email on their phone, then they'll drive to the office to send it.
- black_puppydog 2y ago
  haaaahahah, yes, let's get every single employee a macbook (or better yet I guess, the soon-to-be-announced TeslaBook) whether or not they need one. Just so that Elmo can breathe down their neck any day he wants. Or let's just have every ATC book their personal device into their employer's system. Ya know, because efficiency. Edit: after re-reading it, my money would be on "xBook" or "xPad"