Trump administration formally scraps Musk’s ‘five things’ e-mail

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration on Aug 5 formally axed a programme launched by billionaire Elon Musk, a former adviser to US President Donald Trump, requiring federal employees to summarise their five workplace achievements from the prior week, Reuters first reported. 

The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal human resources agency that implemented Mr Musk’s push to slash the federal workforce, announced the end of the “five things” e-mail through a memo that rescinds guidance instructing workers to comply with the initiative.

“At OPM, we believe that managers are accountable to staying informed about what their team members are working on and have many other existing tools to do so,” OPM director Scott Kupor said in a statement.

He added that the agency told government human resources representatives that OPM would no longer manage the process nor use it internally. 

While many federal agencies had already phased out compliance with the weekly e-mail, the move signals the Trump administration turning the page on one of Mr Musk’s most unpopular initiatives following a falling out between the two in early June. 

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. 

Mr Musk, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help Mr Trump win November’s presidential election, led the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to slash the budget and cut the federal workforce until his departure in May to refocus on his tech empire.

Mr Musk initially received a warm White House send-off from Mr Trump, but then incurred the President’s wrath by describing his tax cut and spending Bill as an abomination.  

Mr Trump pulled the nomination of Mr Musk’s ally, tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, to lead Nasa and later threatened to cancel billions of dollars worth of federal contracts with Mr Musk’s companies after the blow-up between them.

The “five things” e-mail, launched by Mr Musk in February to boost accountability, sparked tensions with department chiefs, who were blindsided by the weekend e-mail mandating the move.

It also fuelled confusion among government workers, who received mixed messages about whether and how to comply.

Reuters reported in March that the White House installed two Trump loyalists at OPM to ensure better policy coordination between the White House and the agency.

Mr Scott Kupor, a venture capitalist who took the helm at OPM in July, had already foreshadowed the initiative’s end, describing processing of the weekly response e-mails as “very manual” and “not efficient”. 

It is “something that we should look at and see, like, are we getting the value out of it that at least the people who put it in place thought they were”, he said. REUTERS