Deadline looms for U.S. federal worker resignations under Musk plan

by Daniel AVIS / Sebastian Smith

More than two million U.S. federal workers were hours away from a deadline Thursday to quit with eight months' pay or risk being fired on the spot in a plan by billionaire Elon Musk to gut the civil service.

Musk, the world's richest person and a top donor to President Donald Trump, is in charge of a free-ranging Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to radically downsize federal agencies.

The most dramatic element so far has been a push to encourage employees to leave by midnight Thursday. According to US media, a small proportion of staffers -- up to 40,000 -- had so far accepted the deal.

The initiative has caused consternation among government workers, who face daily verbal attacks by Trump administration officials.

Unions and Democrats have challenged the legality of threats to fire civil servants.

A federal judge in Massachusetts was to hold a hearing Thursday on a lawsuit by labor unions requesting an injunction against Musk's midnight deadline. The unions backing the suit represent some 800,000 civil servants.

But the campaign has already severely disrupted the huge departments and agencies that for decades have run everything from education to national intelligence.

USAID, the government's huge agency for distributing aid around the world, has been crippled, with foreign-based staff ordered home and the organization's programs lambasted as wasteful by the White House and right-wing media.

Trump has also repeatedly said he wants to shut down the Department of Education, while Musk aides have stoked controversy by accessing a tightly guarded Treasury Department payment system.

The inducements to resign have even been extended to the CIA.

According to a report in The New York Times, the agency sent a list of the most junior -- and easiest to fire -- officers to the White House.

The Times reported that the list gave only their first names and initials of their surnames, but was sent in an unclassified email, sparking concerns that their identities could easily be discovered by foreign adversaries.

In another sign of the scale of cuts intended by Musk's team, an official with the agency that manages government property said the real estate portfolio, barring Department of Defense buildings, should be cut by "at least 50 percent."

- Buyout questions -

Workers considering the buyout offer face considerable uncertainty, including over whether Trump has the legal right to make the offer and whether the conditions will be honored.

The plan was first announced in an email sent across most of the vast government and titled "Fork in the road" -- the same as one Musk sent to all employees at Twitter when he bought the social media platform in 2022 and renamed it X.

Musk says the paid departures are a chance to "take the vacation you always wanted, or just watch movies and chill, while receiving your full government pay and benefits."

But unions warn that without Congress signing off on the use of federally budgeted money, the agreements may be worthless.

"Federal employees shouldn't be misled by slick talk from unelected billionaires and their lackeys," Everett Kelley, president of the large American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a swipe at Musk.

"Despite claims made to the contrary, this deferred resignation scheme is unfunded, unlawful and comes with no guarantees. We won't stand by and let our members become the victims of this con."

The Massachusetts lawsuit also casts doubt on assertions that workers would be free to look for other jobs during their deferment periods, citing ethics regulations.

An employee in the US Office of Personnel Management, where Musk has put his own staff in key positions, said the plan was to encourage resignations through "panic."

"It's not like we're pursuing some orderly measure to reduce the size of government," the employee told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We're trying to instill a panic so that people just walk out the door and leave government in a crippled state, which is partly their objective."

© Agence France-Presse