A rift appeared to open Sunday between some of President Donald Trump’s agency heads and Elon Musk, the billionaire tasked with reforming the federal government, over Musk’s demand that all federal employees state their weekly accomplishments or risk termination.

The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and others told employees not to respond to a directive from Mr. Musk to summarize their accomplishments.

Agencies have provided their employees with varying information about whether to respond to the request for federal employees to provide five accomplishments from the previous week.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management told HR officials that employees not replying to an email asking what they did last week will not be taken as a resignation and staff were not obliged to respond to the email,

“The golden rule of employment law is to obey orders now and grieve them later,” he advised. On Monday, OPM backtracked on Musk’s order. But then Monday night, Musk followed up with another post where he said ignoring the email results in termination.

Elon Musk has been tasked by President Donald Trump with slashing federal government spending and the federal employee headcount, an effort known as DOGE.

After OPM said workers weren’t required to respond, Musk said they’ll get another chance to reply or be fired.