About 75,000 federal employees accepted President Donald Trump’s offer of a buyout, a spokesperson from the Office of Management and Budget confirmed to Business Insider. That’s about 3.75% of the federal workforce, shy of the White House’s original stated goal of having 5 – 10% of employees take the deal.
OPM stopped accepting takers at 7 pm on Wednesday, the spokesperson told BI, hours after US District Judge George O’Toole ended a pause on the program. Those who took the offer have been told they will receive full pay and benefits until September 30, 2025. Some federal employees previously told BI that they weren’t confident they would be paid if they accepted the deal.
Wednesday’s ruling came amid uncertainty about the deadline and offer’s legality. Originally, employees had until February 6 to accept the buyout, but a group of labor unions sued the Trump administration over the “fork in the road” deferred resignation offer. O’Toole issued a temporary restraining order extending the deadline to at least February 10. That day, he said that he was extending the deadline delay until a further ruling, which eventually came Wednesday.
Given that the federal government employs more than 2 million people, between 100,000 and 200,000 workers would have needed to take the offer to meet the administration’s original goal. On average, more than 100,000 federal employees voluntarily resign each year, according to the Partnership for Public Service.
The Trump administration has begun firing employees as Elon Musk makes trimming the federal workforce a centerpiece of his Department of Government Efficiency. Two federal workers at the Small Business Administration told BI that they had been fired, un-fired, and then re-fired in the span of less than a week.
DOGE has gone after certain agencies more intensely than others, including the US Agency for International Development and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Both Musk and DOGE’s account have posted about the buyout offer on X, touting it as an opportunity to move to the private sector or take a vacation.
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