WASHINGTON: US government employees received an email over the weekend, asking them to list their accomplishments from the past week or resign the latest development in the new US administration`s efforts to scale back federal workforce.

`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,` Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to Donald Trump, wrote on his social media platform X.

According to a copy of the email provided to AFP, federal workers were asked to submit `approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.

The deadline to reply was before midnight on Monday, though the message did not say failure to do so would lead to termination.

The newly-confirmed FBI director Kash Patel told his employees in an email that they should `pause any responses` to the OPM memo, BBC News reported.

`FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information,` Patel wrote in a message obtained by CBS News. `The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with the FBI procedures.

The State Department sent a similar message to its employees and said it will respond on behalf of the department.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal employees, criticised the message as `cruel and disrespectful` and vowed to challenge any `unlawful terminations` of federal employees.

-Agencies / Monitoring Desk