Ren Zhengfei, founder and chief executive officer of Huawei Technologies Co., speaks during an interview at the company's headquarters in Shenzhen, China, on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2019.

Huawei is facing a "life or death crisis" amid continued pressure from the U.S. government, its founder and CEO told employees, as he laid out a strategy for the Chinese telecommunications giant going forward.

In a memo to employees of Huawei's networking division seen by CNBC, Ren Zhengfei described the company's current situation as a "battle." Ren is well-known for using military language in his communications with employees.

In May, the company was put on a U.S. blacklist — or the so-called Entity List — which restricts American businesses from selling to the Chinese firm. Huawei relies on a lot of American technology from software to hardware.

But on Monday, the U.S. administration extended a reprieve for the telecommunications company for 90 days. U.S. businesses can sell specific products to Huawei during the 90-day period.

"Now that the company is at a life or death crisis, our first priority is to encourage all crew to make contributions, and the second is to choose and promote talents, to add 'new blood' to our system," Ren said, according to a CNBC translation of the memo. He said there will be "new blood" in the company in three to five years.