Alex Padilla demands Musk, OPM stop sending mass emails to staffers

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Cali., is demanding that Elon Musk and Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Charles Ezell stop sending mass emails to staffers. 

In an open letter published Thursday, Padilla said several legislative branch offices and agencies have received mass emails from hr@opm.gov despite not being subject to personnel actions by the executive branch. 

“Neither the White House nor [the Department of Government Efficiency] nor OPM have any authority or legitimate purpose to mass email legislative branch offices and agencies demanding information from employees or to threaten adverse personnel actions,” Padilla said. 

Over the weekend, the OPM sent out mass emails to federal government workers, asking them to summarize what they did over the prior week using five bullet points. They had until 11:59 p.m. on Monday to provide their responses to the inquiry. 

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Padilla said these emails, received by legislative staffers, wasted “time and resources and potentially [mislead] employees into responding and sharing legislative branch information in an unauthorized manner.” 

Padilla added that the emails were “especially concerning” since several executive branch agencies have “even warned their own employees not to respond to these messages because doing so would risk sensitive information falling into the hands of malign foreign actors.” 

“The fact that these mass emails are also going beyond the scope of the executive branch is yet another sign of how DOGE is operating in an uninformed, poorly executed, and chaotic manner,” Padilla said.

The Democratic lawmaker ended his letter requesting that DOGE and OPM confirm they have taken steps “to ensure that they will cease directly any further mass email communications at legislative branch offices and agencies and their employees.”