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”.

Elon Musk attacked an official in the Department of Defense who dared to criticize his ultimatum ordering federal workers to detail their work accomplishments or face losing their jobs. Things popped off after a government-wide email asking federal employees to provide a detailed breakdown of what they’d done over the past week was sent out on Saturday by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).