Sen. Tina Smith tells Elon Musk he’s a bad boss and uses some bad words to say it

Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., had some choice words for billionaire Elon Musk about his instruction to federal employees Saturday that demanded they summarize their accomplishments in the last week or risk losing their jobs.

“This is the ultimate dick boss move from Musk. Except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a dick,” the Minnesota senator wrote Saturday evening on X, the social media platform Musk owns.

Smith’s fiery message came hours after Musk, who has sought to slash the size of the federal workforce as leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE], announced a new policy on X mandating government workers enumerate their achievements via email by Monday night to keep their jobs.

“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,“ Musk described on X.

Hours later, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management followed through on Musk’s post, sending thousands of federal workers an email mandating they provide “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.”

Musk said Sunday on X that the office had already received “a large number of good responses.”

“These are the people who should be considered for promotion,” he wrote.

Smith, however, likened Musk’s move to a bad boss.

“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,‘ ” Smith wrote, adding with an expletive that she’s on the side of workers, not billionaire bosses.

Her statement prompted a terse response from Musk: “What did you get done last week?” the senior adviser to President Donald Trump asked Smith in a reply that has racked up 36,000 likes and counting.

Smith continued the exchange Sunday morning, telling Musk she spent the week prior “fighting to stop tax breaks for billionaires like you, paid for by defunding health care for moms and babies.”

“I hate to break it to you but you aren’t my boss,” Smith wrote. “I answer to the people of Minnesota.”

Smith wasn’t the only leader to clapback at Musk. Everett Kelley, the president of a labor union representing hundreds of thousands of government workers, said the move was indicative of Musk and Trump’s “utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people.”

The Minnesota senator, meanwhile, doubled down on her criticism of Musk in a statement to the Minnesota Star Tribune. Musk is an “unelected and out-of-touch billionaire” who’s attempting to “intimidate and threaten federal workers,” Smith said, adding that she will continue to call him out.

McLaurine Pinover, a spokeswoman for the federal Office of Personnel Management, confirmed Musk’s directive and said that individual agencies would determine any next steps.

A DOGE spokesperson wasn’t available for comment Sunday.

This story contains material from the Associated Press.