(Image source from: AP)

Imagine the fear of becoming a personal target of the richest man in the world and his supporters. That's what federal officials are thinking after Elon Musk's name was released. Musk, co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, has publicly identified “dummy jobs” and related federal employees at X and suggested mass layoffs. Last week, Elon Musk retweeted the names and titles of climate-related government officials. These posts come from the user account with the username Fentasyl and “Datahazard”. They received so much negative attention that one woman even deleted her social media accounts. According to CNN, current federal employees fear being personally attacked. Everett Kelly, president of the American Federation of Public Employees, said: "These tactics are aimed at instilling fear in federal employees so that they are afraid to speak out."

But that's Musk's usual tactic: picking people who get in his way. Mary "Missy" Cummings, who inadvertently provoked Musk by criticizing Tesla at the National Highway Administration, said: "Either you resign or this is a signal to other government agencies that this is his threatening approach," Ms. Cummings' office for security management said she received numerous death threats and attacks and was forced to temporarily move into her apartment before leaving her home. "Their intention was to intimidate them and people like this into giving up immediately" so that he doesn't have to fire them. So his plan works somewhat. The real problem is the bureaucracy.