President Donald Trump took to social media Sunday, sharing a SpongeBob SquarePants meme to mock the backlash against Elon Musk’s directive requiring federal employees to account for their work.
Trump, who is poised for a return to the White House, appeared to endorse Musk’s recent efforts to introduce greater oversight of government employees. Over the weekend, the Office of Personnel Management, under the guidance of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), sent out an email instructing federal workers to submit a list of five achievements by Monday night at 11:59 p.m.
Musk later announced on X that failure to respond would be interpreted as a resignation.
To highlight the uproar over the directive, the 78-year-old former president shared a meme featuring SpongeBob SquarePants. In the image, SpongeBob sits at a desk, appearing deep in concentration with a notepad and pencil, while Patrick Star, his goofy companion, holds another pad displaying a humorous to-do list titled “Got Done Last Week.”
The comical list included tasks such as “Cried about Trump” and “Cried about Elon,” alongside “Made it to the office for once.”
The final entries continued the theme, reading “Read some emails” and “Cried about Trump and Elon some more.”
Musk himself posted the same meme on X that day, and in a separate post, he defended the email, describing it as “a very basic pulse check” on federal workers.
However, the move sparked criticism from labor organizations, particularly the American Federation of Government Employees. The union’s national president, Everett Kelley, who represents 800,000 government workers, condemned the directive in a letter addressed to Charles Ezell, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
“We believe that employees have no obligation to respond to this unlawful email absent other lawful direction,” Kelley wrote.
Senator Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, also took issue with the email, likening it to a power play from Musk.
“I bet a lot of people have had an experience like this with a bad boss — there’s an email in your inbox on Saturday night saying, ‘Prove to me your worthiness by Monday or else.’ I’m on the side of the workers, not the billionaire …. bosses,” she posted on social media Sunday.
In response to the controversy, some government agencies, including the FBI, the Department of Defense, and the State Department, have reportedly instructed their employees to ignore the email and refrain from submitting a response.
{Matzav.com}