Elon Musk Looks to Stick a Fork in Federal Government Workers

Yahoo

29-01-2025

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On Tuesday night Elon Musk pinned an old post to his X account cheekily recalling his 2022 'Fork in the Road' email to then-Twitter employees, offering the workers of the company he'd just purchased a chance to 'be part of the new Twitter' by simply clicking 'yes' by the end of the following day. Those who didn't respond were informed that they'd receive three months' severance.
Around the same time as Musk's post, hundreds of thousands of federal workers received an email also titled 'Fork in the Road,' with a similar offer: Simply send an email to the Office of Personnel Management with the word 'Resign' in the subject line, and you'll receive eight months' pay, so long as you reply before Feb. 6.
The email described the offer as 'Deferred Resignation,' and stated as its purpose reforming the federal workforce 'significant[ly],' but is light on the sort of details that would typically accompany severance offers.
What the email does concede is that the 'majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions. ' Anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist's dream of shrinking government to a point where it could be drowned in a bathtub may finally be on the verge of realization.
By its terms, workers must accept the terms before Feb. 6, and include the form 'Deferred Resignation Letter' in the email, drafted in the language of the worker, and it contains legal concessions such as voluntariness, not to mention acceptance of terms that simply aren't spelled out in a manner one would expect when departing a job that comes with so many inherent rights and obligations.
Besides the eight-month severance, which Musk described on X as 'the most that is legally allowed without Congress passing another appropriations bill,' those opting in would enjoy the additional carrot of not having to return to the office in person five days a week, as recently mandated by a Trump executive order.
Perhaps unsurprising to anyone who has followed his adventures before Delaware's Court of Chancery, Musk's assessment as to what is legal may be wrong, given the existence of the Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment Authority, which appears to cap severance buyouts of federal workers at $25,000.
But is this even a severance offer if you're still required to work? Well, no, and probably also yes. The email carefully dances around the term 'severance' (again, it's a 'deferred resignation'), even if Musk himself—the likely author of last night's email, or at least its inspiration—referred to it as exactly that. But the email and memorandum (not emailed but available on the OPM's website) both suggest that workers opting in could be placed on administrative leave until the resignation actually kicks in on Sept. 30, 2025.
Setting aside the legal question, there's an obvious economic concern as well: Where is this buyout money coming from, which would be well in excess of $25,000 per worker, if the money isn't already appropriated by Congress? Perhaps, one might argue, the question is moot because the salaries coming off the books would pay the additional severance. But that's speculative math.
Sen. Tim Kaine took to the Senate floor last night to underscore the money question: 'The president has no authority to make that offer. There's no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work. … If you accept that offer and resign, he'll stiff you.'
As difficult as it is to imagine the president of the United States stiffing anyone, anything seems possible in this precarious moment, where we find ourselves again waking to a new, fresh horror unleashed by a president who repeatedly and intentionally breaks things in reliance, only sometimes misplaced, that his judges will jump in and fix them. If the courts decline to bail him out, the always victimized Trump can always declare the loss a witch hunt and target a new enemy.
However this plays out in court—if it even gets there—the email serves a secondary (or perhaps even primary) purpose beyond downsizing. It signals to civil service workers who stay that unless you drink the Kool-Aid, you are not welcome, and your work life will be made miserable. The email cites as one of its four 'pillars' the idea of a 'more streamlined and flexible' workforce that is likely to be restructured, realigned, and reduced through furloughs and reclassifications. In other words, Take the deal on the table because I'm telling you here and now that behind Door 2 lies your nightmare.
The email's fine print describes the offer to workers as a 'dignified, fair departure from the federal government,' but the tone is unmistakable: The incoming administration doesn't value their work, and for many, doesn't believe their work should exist. This email comes only days after workers received the DEIA memorandum gut punch, intending to root out 'DEIA sympathizers' by pitting worker against worker, splitting them along purely ideological lines.
The Deferred Resignation email similarly takes this opportunity to threaten workers who engage in 'unlawful behavior or other misconduct' with 'appropriate investigation and discipline'—menacing language that feels preposterously out of place in an offer to resign. It's difficult to imagine federal workers—a selfless and proud group by nature, who often intentionally took less money because they believe in their work and this country—responding favorably to the implied threat. And that, I suppose, is the point.
The U.S. federal government bears no resemblance to any company or private entity, but Elon Musk just treated all its workers like twentysomething coders at a startup that the hedge fund guys don't think is going to work out, and based on my conversations with friends who are federal workers, it's a travesty, because we're on the verge of finding out how good we had it, and how crucial their work was, the hard way—by losing it entirely.