Cracks are showing. And while the news reports on Musk’s cruelty and incompetence, they miss a lot of the resistance that’s making the cracks. And with it, a chance to understand how power works.
Over the weekend, unelected Elon Musk and his rogue crew sent out messages to federal workers asking: “What did you do last week?” in 5 bullet points (even from folks on vacation!).
On social media, Musk wrote, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
We can pause here to reflect how strange and awful this is right now. Musk, according to the Trump administration’s lawyers, isn’t in charge of anything. Yet the mainstream media acted as though this was perfectly reasonable to threaten millions of people’s livelihoods with an AI bot at the end deciding who is fired or not.
Aside from the sleepless nights and worry, one fed worker calculated that if 2.2 million workers spent 10 minutes writing Musk’s email, it would cost over $17 million plus untold loss of productivity.
But something happened. After Musk told the Office of Personnel Management to send his email — something changed.
That critical, threatening line about non-responses will lead to termination was cut/never made it into the email.
Why wasn’t it included?
It’s not because Musk didn’t want it in there. He made the threat in his tweet very clear (and later doubled-down).
It’s not because Musk knows it’s illegal. He’s broken plenty of laws.
It’s not because Musk is having a change of heart. He’s a billionaire bully.
It’s undoubtedly a sign of internal pushback beginning to take place. That’s only because of the lawsuits, the pressure, and YOUR calls and protests!
The media completely missed this and in its headlines screamed, “Musk threatens workers who don’t respond.”
But what happened next was even more important.
So workers got the message. And within minutes signal messages flew. On one channel a worker wrote:
- I did [classified]
- Also [classified]
- Also [classified]
- Also [classified]
- Finally [classified]
Another replied, “No! Don’t send him anything. He’s not your boss!” Others agreed: “My mission at the EPA is to protect people and the environment. I will fight evil and perform my work.”
Across the country, thousands of courageous federal workers wrote and advised each other to REFUSE to reply to those emails.
Soon the unions — NTEU, AFGE, CFPB — followed suit and told workers they should ignore the email completely. NTEU’s advisory had a huge headline: “DO NOT RESPOND TO ELON!” The ball was rolling.
By now the Department of Defense joined in and told its people to ignore the memo. Finally, even some of Trump’s own people — sycophants like Kash Patel (FBI), Marco Rubio (Secretary of State) and Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence) — told their staff to not comply.
This is how noncompliance works. It’s a chain reaction of smaller to bigger dominos — the smaller ones knock down the bigger ones and on and on until the bigger dominos fall.
What we just saw is the largest mass noncompliance with Elon Musk (so far!).
This is the general direction we need to go. Musk says jump — and we all say “nope” and return to our lives.
Notably, traditional press mostly only caught the story once Patel and Rubio joined in. The resistance starting from workers and unions went unnoticed and largely unreported.
After humiliating headlines of impotence, Trump and Musk only know how to double-down. Prepare for more flailing, drama, and horrific acts to follow.
But there are signs of cracking everywhere. On this situation, lawsuits against this whole charade and the 21 DOGE workers who quit in protest (“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services. We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”)
Hopefully others who haven’t quit learn the art of digital sabotage against DOGE.
Meanwhile, protests continue at town halls and outside legislative offices. Find actions nearby from Build the Resistance. The TeslaTakedown effort is gaining momentum as Tesla sales slide across the country. Call centers for the White House continue to report extreme surges (make your call today). And read so many other stories of people resisting on Resist List.
And then there’s the debt ceiling and government funding bill. For folks having trouble assessing what’s proposed, we find this chart very telling — an assessment from the Institute on Taxation and Economy Policy:
Rev. Bob Hunter (Daniel’s dad) wrote a message: “The people are beginning to fight back. Some methods will fail but many others are winning!!! Don’t give up!! Keep the resistance going: from boycotts to town hall meeting protests to sharing the info, meeting with like minded friends to helping those who don’t yet see. Keep up the protest and boycott of Tesla. Federal workers keep resisting in what ever ways you can. We love you!!! Take care of yourselves!!! We are going to beat back this Autocracy. Trump is no King — and never will be.”
Thanks for all you do.
Warmly,
– Choose Democracy