Musk aims to hobble federal workers ahead of ‘buyout' deadline

Politico

06-02-2025

Elon Musk has declared war on the bureaucracy. And as a Thursday deadline nears for federal employees to take a 'buyout,' he is looking to demoralize and wear down his enemy.
Across the government, officials in President Donald Trump's administration have fired off message after message pushing staff to accept the deferred resignation program, coaxing them with promises of paid vacations and threatening that there will be layoffs if they don't leave. At the same time, Musk has bullied them with online taunts.
In an email to some federal employees Tuesday, obtained by POLITICO, a commissioner at a department overseen by Musk's allies warned of the impending pain if they don't leave. Josh Gruenbaum, who manages the Federal Acquisition Service at the General Services Administration, said that 'we won't need staff in certain areas of the country' and 'will be cutting redundant business functions and associated staffing.' He said 'we're also considering how we can utilize AI in our portfolios.'
Countless staffers in the government are now grappling with what to do. Some have accepted the deferred resignations. But as the deadline quickly approaches, others are growing defiant and vowing not to take the offer because they fear it won't be honored anyway, setting up the potential for mass layoffs and a protracted battle between the billionaire and bureaucracy.
'I don't think this offer is meaningful. I also don't think many people will take it,' said David Casserly, an employee at the Department of Labor, while stressing that he was speaking in a personal capacity. 'If you have to send us 10 emails that say this is totally not a scam, then it's probably a scam.'
According to Trump allies, the intimidation campaign is deliberate as the president pursues an unprecedented purge of the federal workforce.
'They realized that you can kind of turn up the heat in a lot of these departments and people will leave, especially because the federal workforce is older,' said a former Trump official who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to speak freely. 'You have a glut of Boomers now and they're reaching retirement age. And if you can force them out of the door, you don't have to replace them, and it's one way to reduce the government.'
A spokesperson for Musk's so-called Department of Government of Efficiency did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for GSA said that the department 'has been fully committed to providing our employees with all the information available so that they can make the best decision for themselves and their families.'
The Trump White House has set a goal for 5 to 10 percent of federal employees to take deferred resignations, and Musk's super PAC, America PAC, estimated that the government could realize $100 billion in savings if it reached those numbers. But as of Wednesday, only 1 percent had opted into the plan.
Musk and Trump officials have increasingly turned the screws on career employees as Thursday's deadline has neared.
Musk boasted to his 216 million followers on his social media platform X that DOGE is 'the wood chipper for bureaucracy.' He accused Treasury employees of 'breaking the law every hour of every day,' attacked the U.S. Agency for International Development as a 'viper's nest of radical-left marxists who hate America,' and shared a post belittling government workers as dumb.
Musk has also described his work to slash the government workforce in grandiose and existential terms. He said on X that Americans have 'one shot' to end the 'rule of the bureaucrats' and replace it with the 'rule of the people.'
One GSA staffer said 'the confusion and fear is the point,' and that the messages they keep receiving from Trump officials are akin to pointing a 'gun at people' and then claiming 'this is a voluntary resignation.' A second federal employee said 'half my office was in tears' on a recent afternoon.
Last week, government employees received emails stating that the deferred resignation offer is 'valid, lawful, and will be honored' and that they can travel to a 'dream destination' while on leave.
Earlier this week, federal workers were also warned in messages that the offer expires at 11:59 p.m. Thursday and there 'will NOT be an extension of this program.'
The Department of Education went so far as to send a message, which was shared with POLITICO, about the deferred resignation offer to the personal email address of a federal employee placed on leave.
Musk's moves at DOGE mirror his purge at his social media company previously known as Twitter. He said he cut 80 percent of the staff there, and was sued by employees alleging that he did not pay them all of the severance that they were owed. A U.S. judge dismissed one such case, but others are working their way through the courts and arbitration.
And now Musk's highly publicized history at Twitter is coming back to haunt him. Some federal employees and union leaders representing them said that they are not taking the offer because they don't trust it will be upheld.
They also have dug in as they've felt smeared.
'The offer that we've been presented with is not something I see a lot of people taking,' said Sheria Smith, union president of Local 252 at the American Federation of Government Employees. 'It was really, really insulting, frankly. It insulted our work ethic and insulted our commitment to our jobs.'
Smith said that of the 2,000 members she represents, fewer than 10 have asked the union questions about the offer. She added that she is 'aware of a handful of people who are taking it because they already had plans to leave the agency.'