An FBI agent proposed launching a criminal investigation into Elon Musk while he led efficiency efforts--known as DOGE-- in the Trump administration last year alleging he and a co-conspirator “encouraged, abetted, aided, etc.” government employees to transmit sensitive information in violation of official policy and for using “twitter” for official government business, according to an email released on Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Senator Chuck Grassley, the Chairman of the committee, made the email public during a hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. 

“I would like to recommend the opening of a criminal 58 matter on the person(s) at OPM who approved the transmission of the earlier email. That person in conspiracy with Elon Musk (who is reportedly an SGE), in addition to wasting a colossal amount of official time, encouraged, abetted, aided, etc. thousands if not tens of thousands of government employees to violate government wide security policy and transmit sensitive government information outside of a strict need to know,” the now-former FBI agent Kevin Gounaud wrote in a February 2025 email. 

“And no, I’m not kidding,” he concluded. 

Just days earlier, Musk and the Office of Personnel Management asked federal employees to submit a bullet point summary of their accomplishments for the week. The email from OPM specifically directed employees not to include classified information, links, or attachments. 

Musk announced the policy publicly on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that Musk acquired in October 2022. “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk posted to the platform. 

The FBI agent posited that Musk’s use of X to announce the policy was itself possibly illegal, comparing it to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State in the Obama administration.

“Furthermore, Musk used a non government system (twitter) to relate information that allegedly was for official purposes. In doing so, because he is monetized (he is a majority owner of twitter) he likely generated income for himself based on Twitter's monetization model and/or advertising revenues,” the agent wrote. “Furthermore, this likely violates 18 USC 208 and the terms of his SGE agreement - an SGE cannot monetize themselves with their government work.” 

The agent also suggested that Musk’s public threat that employees would be terminated if they did not respond “potentially violates 18 USC 873.”

The agent concluded the email by offering to write the paperwork to open the case and hunt down a prosecutor who would take it. Additionally, he offered to forward the information to Congress or the OPM Inspector General.