Over 24,000 federal employees have accepted the buyout option offered by the Trump administration — to resign by February 6 with extended pay and benefits or return to work in-person with new “performance standards” — according to reports.
The Office of Personnel Management sent out a memo to federal employees last month, offering over 2 million federal employees the choice of returning to work in person with “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” or leaving their post voluntarily and receiving eight months of pay. T
he kicker is, they would have to make that choice by Thursday, February 6, 2025. This offer is part of the greater move of Trump and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk to downsize the size of government.
According to reports from NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman, roughly 24,000 federal employees have accepted the buyout option.
The day prior, Axios reported that the figure stood around 20,000.
“It’s a significant number of people — about 1% of the federal workforce — but still substantially less than the White House’s target of 5% to 10%,” the outlet reported at the time, citing an official, who believes there will be “more to come.”
The email reads in part, “If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason).”
Further, the email also warned of forthcoming downsizing “through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force.”
“A fork in the road,” Musk said of the reports of the buyout option.
This comes as the Trump administration continues to weed through government waste and rot, particularly within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), not only placing dozens of senior staffers on administrative leave but on Monday telling the remainder to stay out of the agency’s headquarters.
Federal employees have until Thursday to take the buyout option.
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