Pentagon leadership instructed employees to “pause” any response to Musk’s team, according to an email from Jules Hurst, the deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

In a sign that not every Trump official is on the same page, leaders at the FBI and State Department instructed employees not to respond.

Elon Musk threatened to fire even more federal workers if they did not respond to his email demanding a list of five tasks completed.

America’s government was in disarray after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency sent an email to all federal employees asking them to list what they did last week by Monday night. Mr Musk warned that failure to reply would be “taken as a resignation”.

Millions of federal employees are heading into their workweek caught between differing factions of the Trump administration.

Officials at multiple US government departments offered staff conflicting guidance on how to respond to a Saturday email touted by Trump adviser Elon Musk requesting they list their accomplishments from the past week.