THE US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the government’s human resources agency, sent an email to the entire federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating. They included a full-time return to the office for most employees.
The email said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct”, aiming to retain only employees who were “reliable, loyal, trustworthy”. It warned that most agencies would be downsized.
“If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program,” the email reads.
It offered workers more than seven months’ salary, and asked them to reply with the word “Resign”.
The email had the same subject line – “Fork in the road” – as one sent by Elon Musk to employees at Twitter in 2022 when he bought the social media platform.
Musk has been tasked by Trump with cutting as much as a quarter of all government spending. He does not work at the office of personnel management but a former employee of Musk’s, Amanda Scales, was recently made its chief of staff.
The unprecedented move appeared to defy rules that protect government employees from political interference and to immediately kneecap all federal government agencies.
Unions representing federal workers immediately condemned the offer.
The Virginia senator, Tim Kaine, called it a trick. “If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you,” Kaine said, referencing Trump’s well-documented history of attempting to avoid paying contractors.
“He doesn’t have any authority to do this,” Kaine said. “Do not be fooled by this guy.”
Trump has pledged to radically remake government, including significantly shrinking the federal workforce and cutting trillions of dollars of spending – an agenda his administration is attempting to implement at breakneck speed.
Since Friday, the US president has fired a dozen independent federal government watchdogs, as well as Gwynne Wilcox, a senior official at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), who described her dismissal as “unprecedented and illegal”.
On Monday, the administration moved to freeze all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government – an effort that a judge blocked on Tuesday.
The American Federation of Government Employees denounced the latest move. The union’s president, Everett Kelley, argued the offer was an effort to pressure workers who are not considered loyal to the new administration to leave their jobs – which could cause upheaval in federal programs.
“Purging the federal government of dedicated career federal employees will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government,” Kelley said in a statement.
“Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.”
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The mass departure of federal workers – from frontline healthcare workers in the veterans affairs department to the officials charged with processing loans for homebuyers or small businesses – could have sweeping consequences for Americans.
The New York Times reported that it could seriously disrupt American life on a vast scale, including most benefits traditionally termed “welfare” – including Medicare, social security and food stamps – as well as travel, tax returns, the normal function of national parks and national museums, passport renewals, medical research, other forms of science, the inspectors and regulators who make sure that food, water and pharmaceutical drugs are safe to consume, and even the accurate functioning of the National Weather Service.
The US government is roughly the nation’s 15th-largest workforce with more than 3 million employees. Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that has guided much of Trump’s policy goals, calls for mass firings of federal workers and suggests replacing many of them with political appointees.
