Elon Musk has issued a major ultimatum to all federal workers across the US as he wields the axe in a major culling of roles to cut waste.

The Tesla CEO has ordered all federal government staff to report on all their work accomplishments from the previous week on Monday or resign.

The request came to all government employee emails on Saturday evening, shortly after Musk, the head of Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), posted on X that not responding to the request would be viewed as a resignation.

He wrote: "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’s post came just hours after Trump posted on Truth Social that Doge should be more aggressive in its campaign to cut down the 2.3 million federal workforce.

Elon Musk has ordered all federal government staff to report on all their work accomplishments from the previous week

“ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE,” Trump wrote.

An email with the subject "What did you do last week?" was sent to employees across several federal agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others.

It asks staff to reply outlining five bullet points summarising what they had accomplished in the last week and to copy in their managers.

The deadline to reply to the email, sent from a human resources address from the Office of Personnel Management, is 11.59pm EST on Monday.

Trump has told Musk to be 'more aggressive' in his culling of staff

It is not understood what legal grounds Musk has to sack employees who do not comply with the request, and what would happen to staff who cannot reveal confidential work.

Although the court system is not part of the executive branch of government, some federal judiciary employees also received the email.

According to sources, employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also received the email, even though staff had been told not to perform any tasks since earlier this month.

The agency is also currently under a temporary court order not to continue with mass terminations pending the outcome of legal proceedings.

New FBI director Kash Patel took matters into his own hands, sending employees an email telling staff to ignore the email.

He wrote: “FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.”

“When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses,” he added.

Ambassador Tibor Nagy at the State Department also emailed colleagues, saying staff are not required to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command.

Kash Patel took matters into his own hands, sending employees an email telling staff to ignore the email

“The State Department will respond on behalf of the Department,” Nagy said.

Managers at the Department of Justice told their staff to refrain from replying to the email, worried it could trigger ethics violations.

Meanwhile, Ed Martin, who leads the US attorney’s office in Washington, told his employees to reply to the email.

“DOGE and Elon are doing great work! History. We are happy to participate,” Martin told his office, according to a screenshot of an email he posted on X.

“Please respond to the HR email carefully with regard to confidentiality and our duties. Be general if you need to. If anyone gives you problems, I’ve got your back. You’re good,” he added.