Some government employees are horrified after musk -wesanis about buyout offerings

After Trump administration left some federal staff talking to ABC News that was horrified.

By responding to an e-mail sent on Tuesday, all federal employees have full time-with-the-exception of military staff and the post workers options to get eight months’ salary if they agree to leave their jobs.

“The federal workforce must consist of employees who are reliable, loyal, reliable, and who strive for expertise in their daily work,” said the e -mail sent to the employees, offering them what it called a “exposed resignation ”from their positions.

In comments on X Lo Musk of a specific aspect of the offer and wrote, “Hit ‘Send’,” accompanied by a screenshot of the letter to employees describing how to submit their resignation via E email.

Musk’s attitude as he works to adopt sweeping changes over the federal government – potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of career employees who have spent their lives working behind the scenes – not being lost on some workers who told ABC News that Trump – Administration and Musk’s tone have been “cruel” and “demoralization.”

“It feels like the new administration thinks we’re dirt and don’t do anything for the country,” said a 20-year-old federal employee who asked not to be identified by fear of retaliation. “This is heartbreaking.”

According to a copy of the severance letter sent by Office of Personal Management, federal employees need to acknowledge that the positions they vacate could be removed or consolidated and their response to buyout -e -mail can be used “for To help with the federal workforce —tomoranization effort “

Tesla, SpaceX and X CEO Elon Musk movements while speaking during an inauguration event, January 20, 2025 in Washington.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

While employees are not expected to work in their deferred resignation, it has to resign to commit to a “smooth transition” out of their roles.

The dust of an executive order that would make it easier to fire career -government, the administrative officials said they expect the reduction of public workforce from buyout and other executive actions to be “significant.”

Outdated hitherto unprecedented to its extent and nature seems to be part of Trump’s celebrating approach to reducing government size – using an approach that mirrors tactics used by musk in the past. When Musk took over Twitter in November 2022, he similarly sent a business-covering email that gave workers an ultimatum: work harder or leave with resignation. Yesterday’s E -Mail shared the same subject line – “a fork in the road” – as a musk used in his e e -mail.

When federal employees digested the conditions of the buyout on Wednesday, it was unclear who was entitled to it and whether there would really be severance payments, which could be delayed with litigation.

Max Alonzo, National Secretary-Treasurer of the National Federation of Federal employees, expressed skepticism about the conditions of resignation.

“Definitely doesn’t resign. There’s nothing that says the day you resign they can’t just let you go. They don’t have to pay you – there’s nothing that says they have to pay you up to 30 . “This is nothing that has been done before. This is not in our rules. There is no regs about it. We are not even sure if it is actually legal. This is about trying to cut the federal workforce down, Really just breaking down these democracy columns.

Foreign Service Manager in the Ministry of State received the email “Fork in the Road”, but so far the state department officials have not been able to give their 16,000-person workforce a clear answer as to whether they are eligible to take it, according to an official acquaintance with the case. Even if employees are considered to be eligible for buyouts, there is concern that – if enough of them takes up the federal government on its offer – it will influence national security due to the sudden, drastic degradation.

“The consequences could be really scary,” said the official, who also asked not to be identified. “This could really hurt.”

The sweeping approach seems to be one of the first monumental steps to reshape the government of Musk that supported Trump’s elections with $ 250 million in contributions and became one of Trump’s closest advisers.

When Trump first announced his plans to establish the “Department of Government Efficiency” in November, he framed it as an external group that would advise the White House on how to make the government more efficient. Two months later, when Trump actually established DOGE through an executive order, he took a different approach, giving Musk control over what used to be known as the UNIVERY STATES Digital Service, a unit within the executive office of the president, The task of improving the government’s websites.

In an executive order signed the same day, Trump also was tasked with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to work with Doge and the Office of Personnel Management to “submit a plan to reduce the size of the federal government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and degradation “

In addition to Helming Doge, Musk has expanded its influence in the federal government by having its former employees and DOGE -Loyalists take on critical roles in other parts of the government. Scott Kupor – Trump’s election to lead the Office of Personnel Administration. – thanked the president for “the opportunity to earn” the country by helping Musk, and OMP’s chief of staff Amanda Scales worked for Musk’s AI company as late as this month.

To operate the Office of Management and Budget, the Trump Project 2025 used architect Russell Vought, who shares Musk’s desire for historical cuts and reductions in the workforce. Vought was a central figure in Trump’s attempt to categorize thousands of officials as political appointments, making it easier to shoot employees without the protections given to officials. As one of his first actions in office, Trump signed a executive order to strip thousands of government workers in their employment protection.

The new hires and executive orders represent the first steps in Musk’s plan for “mass counting reductions across the federal bureaucracy”, which he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in November.

“Doge intends to work with embedded appointed in agencies to identify the smallest number of employees required on an agency to perform its constitutionally allowed and statutory mandates,” wrote Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently traveled DOGE to run to the public office.