Musk “Five Things” Email Breaches Separation of Executive and Judicial Branches

Elon Musk’s email to federal employees demanding a list of five things they accomplished at work in the past week went to some of the judicial branch, over which the executive branch has no authority.

Even some judges reportedly received the email threatening to take non-response as resignation from their roles. Judiciary staff were advised to ignore the email.

Max Stearns, a professor at the University of Maryland’s law school, noted that several legal actions against the new regime are in the federal courts. He said, “The idea that the executive branch should have some entitlement to progress reports from the internal workings of an Article III judicial chamber, especially at a time when these chambers are resolving pending matters, precisely involving a series of executive orders from the White House, is as profound a violation of separation of powers as one could conceivably imagine.”

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