ON FEBRUARY 22nd Elon Musk posted 158 times on X, his social-media platform. But that was not his only communication. Over the course of that afternoon, a Saturday, all civilian federal employees—some 2.3m people—were sent an email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) telling them to reply by midnight on February 24th with “approx” five bullet points listing “what you accomplished last week”, leaving out any classified information. Mr Musk reckons some government employees are doing so little work that “they are not checking their email at all”. Some government workers, in fact, he suggested are not even real people. According to his X posts, any employee who does not reply will be considered to have resigned.

THE FIRST shot against America’s senior military leaders was fired within hours of Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20th: General Mark Milley’s portrait was removed from the wall on the E-ring, where it had hung with paintings of other former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff. A day later the commandant of the coast guard, Admiral Linda Fagan, was thrown overboard. On February 21st it was the most senior serving officer, General Charles “CQ” Brown, a former F-16 pilot, who was ejected from the Pentagon. At least he was spared a Trumpian farewell insult. “He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader,” Mr Trump declared.