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Two anonymous federal employees have sued the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), alleging that a newly circulated email system is actually linked to Elon Musk.
Last week, OPM circulated a series of unusual emails in which the agency claimed it was testing “a new capability” to contact all federal employees. Employees were encouraged to reply to the OPM emails to confirm they had received them. Amanda Scales, a former xAI employee (Musk’s company), was recently made chief of staff at OPM. The new class-action lawsuit claims that Scales and others may be helping to build a database of federal staff that could be used in the future to create contact lists for mass layoffs.
The suit is brief and doesn’t provide much evidence for its assertions other than a Reddit post, which the litigation claims is sourced from an “unknown OPM employee” who is self-described as having been an agency employee for “nearly a decade and a Federal Employee for almost 20 years.” This employee posted a message to an internal “Union chat” in the government and then proceeded to upload that same message to a public-facing subreddit.
According to claims made in that subreddit, an email server was set up inside the OPM office, in an effort to make it appear that a Musk-linked email system was actually emanating from the public office. It reads:
Our CIO, Melvin Brown, (also a non political career public servant) was pushed aside just one week into his tenure because he refused to setup email lists to send out direct communications to all career civil servants. Such communications are normally left up to each agency. Instead, an on-prem (on-site) email server was setup. Someone literally walked into our building and plugged in an email server to our network to make it appear that emails were coming from OPM. It’s been the one sending those various “test” message you’ve all seen. We think they’re building a massive email list of all federal employees to generate mass RIF notices down the road.
The litigation subsequently claims that the email system presents illegal privacy risks to employees. Such a list violates the E-Government Act of 2002, the suit claims. That law mandates that new databases involving personally identifiable information can only be created after a Privacy Impact Assessment is conducted and, in some cases, the impact assessment must be publicly posted, the litigation claims.
While the contents of the lawsuit are currently unverifiable, it speaks to the fear and anxiety currently roiling the civil service, as Trump’s new administration sets up a self-admitted scorched earth agenda to drastically reduce the federal workforce and mangle America’s bureaucracy. Elon Musk has notably made himself a key fixture of the new administration, and his DOGE service—which aims to trim the federal budget—has reportedly sent emissaries far and wide throughout the government.
It’s accurate that Brown has left his position as the agency’s top tech official after having served in the position for less than a month. Brown has been replaced by Greg Hogan, a figure of apparently mysterious repute, given that FedScoop has said, of him: “Details about background or experience weren’t immediately clear.” Gizmodo reached out to the OPM for more information and will update this story if the agency responds.
