Scoop: Acting NIH director tells employees to ignore Musk-directed OPM "justify your existence" email.

Saturday's OPM email followed a tweet by Elon Must, which led to confusion and indignation across the federal government. Sunday, the acting NIH Director walked it back.

Hi everyone,

I think this is Breaking News, but I’m not entirely sure. Either way, I’ve confirmed this is real and wanted you to see it now. It’s the first official break in policy from yesterday’s Trump administration email demanding that all federal employees email the Office of Personnel Management by 11:59 p.m. Monday to tell them what they accomplished last week—a menacing prospect with discomfiting implications. Below is an email to all NIH staff written by acting NIH Director Dr. Matthew Memoli, and sent out just an hour ago.

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Acting NIH Director tells employees to “hold off” replying to OPM email.

Yesterday, federal employees received an email from the Office of Personnel Management essentially requiring that they justify their existence by replying to with “approx.” five bullet points saying what they achieved at work last week. The email followed a similar Elon Musk tweet which also said that failure to respond would be interpreted as resignation.

Today, in an email obtained by Inside Medicine from a former NIH contractor who also received it, Acting Director of the NIH, Dr. Matthew Memoli instructed his staff to “hold on responding to OPM until we receive further guidance.”

Here’s a screenshot of the email sent to NIH employees (scrubbed of metadata):

While individual HHS employees were unclear as to the seriousness of the original email from OPM (and Musk’s tweet), Dr. Memoli’s email today marks the first official break in policy from someone in the federal government who was appointed by the Trump administration.

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