20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says
578 comments
·February 5, 2025Shank
Larrikin
Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.
reaperducer
Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.
Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company, my guess is that neither the Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout people will ever see a dime.
For some reason, links to stories about the leins and SpaceX becoming notorious for not paying its bills are hard to come by, but it's in the printed newspapers regularly; as recently as yesterday. Here's and older link I could find: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-t...
robocat
The article mentions $2.5MM liens which is drastically less than 1% of expenses of $1445MM ("[SpaceX] generated $55 million in profit on $1.5 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2023")
It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying.
I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company.
Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year).
casenmgreen
Is it possible Mr. Musk's companies are actually in deep trouble financially, and this political stuff is actually a means to an end?
weinzierl
I am complete outsider and know nothing about this so I am sorry to ask but in my view this is a shocking proposition. Can anyone corroborate this?
EDIT: Specifically the claim that "SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company"
bmitc
They're hard to come by because people think rockets magically solve all of our problems and so any problems they introduce are ignored for the "greater good".
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atkailash
[dead]
gpm
The senior executives still are.
Case: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68307087/agrawal-v-musk...
The only substantive order in the case to date appears to be one denying Elon Musk et al.'s motion to dismiss one of the claims: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.42...
amscanne
That would be a separate issue, those are not the terms of a buy-out package initiated after the acquisition, but rather wanting to enforce the terms of their original agreements (because Musk terminated them).
carom
To my knowledge, no. Former employees sued to get Twitter's old pre-acquisition severance package and the court dismissed it. [1]
1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-...
refreeze654
This is not true. There are thousands of cases at various stages still in progress. This ruling was specific to one specific avenue being pursued. Source: the body of the article you posted.
csa
> this was never authorized by congress,
Correct.
> so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best
Incorrect.
The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot). The money is or will be there. Historically, even if there is a furlough, this money is backfilled and folks are paid. Note that there will probably be riots if lengthy furloughed folks don’t get back pay.
> So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.
Correct.
The speculation is that:
1. The “resign” folks will be put on admin leave in March 1 (or earlier).
2. Budget impasse in mid-March. Furlough ensues.
3. Folks on admin leave just end up getting cut, or not paid, and/or not back paid due to peculiarities of admin leave.
> It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.
I think it’s above average, but not “incredibly generous”. People get $25k VSIP and VERA offers all the time. This may not seem like a lot, but many fed employees live in low COL areas and/or earn relatively low wages.
The best parts of the package, assuming they deliver, would be things like insurance (for non-retirees) and possibly TSP contributions and matching (if those are allowed).
If they want the numbers they say that they want, I think something near this level of package is necessary.
rich_sasha
Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all institutions of power are held by Republicans?
Non-American here with only a Mickey Mouse understanding of US mechanics of power.
michaelmrose
So the fed defunding whatever they like by fiat gives the Republicans nothing to offer the other side to play ball because anything that they offer could easily be taken away. Its like showing up to the auction with monopoly money.
Without the dems they need almost every Republican to agree because their margin is only 5 votes. Historically this is difficult because their ranks now include several morons and extremists most notably the lady who actually believed Jews were responsible for starting wildfires with space based lasers.
If a handful of extremists don't ask for crazy nonsense they will still have every hand out for pork.
Then it goes to the Senate where it needs 60 votes including dems to pass anything. The first round of crazy if it passes anything might easily end up with something too stupid to pass the Senate without also termination of the fillibuster.
Jtsummers
It's happened before. In 2018 the shutdowns occurred despite the Republican hold over both houses.
johnrgrace
Republicans only hold the house by two seats so to pass something they need to have everyone on board. Any single republican member of congress that wants to hold the whole thing hostage for demands pretty much can.
JumpCrisscross
> Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all institutions of power are held by Republicans?
No. American political parties are more akin to continuously-branded coalitions than parties in the way they work in parliamentary systems. There is a minority of House Republicans who will vote down any budget bill because they reject the concept of federal government.
stonogo
Generally a small cadre of extremists within the ruling party holds the entire government hostage for a few days over performative nonsense for future campaign purposes.
csa
> Is it a given there would be a budget impasse, if all institutions of power are held by Republicans?
I’m not an expert on this topic, so please take these comments with a grain of salt:
1. The simplest way a budget impasse could start is with internal feuding within the Republican Party. Some Republicans are very aggressive deficit hawks all the time. Some Republicans are only “deficit hawks” when a Democrat is president, but they spend freely when a Republican is president. Note that almost all of the largest budget deficits since 1990 have been under Republican administrations (Covid years under Trump and Biden were wonky and should probably be asterisked). So the pork-seeking Republicans and the deficit hawk Republicans can get into a stand off about what the budget should be.
2. Even if Congress is on the same page, Trump can choose not to sign the budget if he doesn’t get his pet issues addressed. This may seem like something that they should be able to work out beforehand, but his “priorities” change, sometimes daily, often based on who he happened to have spoken to last.
3. Some republicans want the government to break. The playbook here is to break the system in some way, point out that the system doesn’t work, and then make attempts to privatize that system or massively overhaul that system (likely with massive cuts of workers and largesse to contractors). It may seem odd that an elected official strives to make the government not work, but they are able to make that tack work for them at the polls. I think that this is a deep (and warped) issue that is hard for me to explain well.
BatmansMom
needs 60 votes to pass senate, not just a majority
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insane_dreamer
> The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot).
Since the budget is only funded through March, the budget can be modified in March in order to extend the funding for it (all those "government shutdown avoidance negotiations"). At which point it won't matter whether it was budgeted or not.
NoMoreNicksLeft
If they were not paid because they were on "admin leave", does that look bad for Trump, or does that look bad for Congress? And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that anyway? They're mostly on board for this bullshit aren't they?
sitkack
Nothing looks bad to them, so it doesn't matter. Looking bad isn't a deterrent any more.
scarface_74
Nothing ever looks bad for Trump. His followers will always make excuses for him. The latest is that Trump campaigned on “America First” and isolationism and now MAGAs are cheering his ideas of using American troops to take over the Gaza Strip and making it a tourist destination.
anigbrowl
I guarantee Trump and his sycophants will just turn around and say they were lazy bums who wanted to get paid to do nothing, and the fact that this option was presented in the form of an early retirement offer will make exactly no difference.
You've gotta understand the dynamics of social media information warfare. Loyalty trumps any other considerations like factuality or consistency, people will denounce tomorrow what they championed today if need be. I've seen some pro posters who post contradictory responses to Trump or Musk statements and then just delete whichever one gets less positive engagement.
csa
> If they were not paid because they were on "admin leave", does that look bad for Trump, or does that look bad for Congress?
It would be Trump/Elon.
Someone told me the details of how they could not pay people. It’s administrivia. It will go unnoticed by most just like how the twitter folks not getting paid went unnoticed by most.
> And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that anyway?
They give zero fucks about fucking over feds or former Feds, as they are (allegedly) all lazy and useless.
The end result will be less money spent (trivial, but still) and a lower head count moving forward.
The Republican rhetoric on this largely doesn’t jibe with reality.
Yes, there are underemployed people in the federal government (as exist in any large org). Identifying that slack and cutting it is not something that can be done with laser shots from space. They can only be done from the ground, imho. The current way they are doing things is going to end with a lot of unpleasant unintended consequences.
veggieroll
I think the adminstration's plan to execute on this is basically garden leave. They tell the "retiring" employees to stop working, but keep them on the payroll so they keep getting paid.
This administration has been playing a lot of games with "budgeted" vs. "delayed" vs. "actively being worked on" (or not). So this isn't really that different than the abrupt cancellations or delays or re-org'ing of funded and legislatively mandated work.
The main difference is the uncertainty. IMO anyone would be incredibly foolish to accept a deal from a random email with such limited info on the exact terms of what happens in edge cases like you describe: shutdown, budget shenanigans, actual official RIF, etc.
bigmattystyles
That sounds illegal
ryandrake
Almost any reply to a political thread in the next four years is going to be "That sounds illegal" but it's only illegal if the law gets enforced. I encourage anyone responding with "That sounds illegal" or "They can't do that" to also include in their response, "...and it will be enforced by [xxxx]." and try to come up with a realistic xxxx.
EDIT: I'm not making any judgment about whether this particular thing is legal or not--just pointing out that it doesn't matter if it's legal if nobody in power intends to enforce the law.
yapyap
oh brother, totally agree.
but also, legality is a thing of the past in the new way of things it feels.
dgfitz
[flagged]
cm2187
Garden leaves are done all the times in the private sector.
stevage
Would that cause employees to break laws if they accepted employment elsewhere during that time?
scottyah
No, it is specifically stated that there are no repercussions for finding other work.
luckydata
yeah this is not a buyout, this is someone asking people to resign and that MAYBE their employer will look the other way while they don't work until the effective resignation date but no guarantees about it.
That's a setup for firing people on the spot for cause if I've ever seen one.
zrail
It is incredibly foolish to entertain this offer. OPM v Richmond[1] held that the government has effectively zero liability for lying about financial benefits that haven't been specifically authorized by Congress.
verandaguy
Fortunately, the current US president has a long and storied history of going out of his way to pay people mutually agreed-upon sums from prior contracts.
unclebucknasty
Kind of odd seeing people casually discuss the mechanics/details of what's been going on this last week, as if they whole thing isn't just flagrantly illegal.
Reminds me of this: https://www.upworthy.com/hypernormalization-explained.
FrontierProject
Ironically, enough, interacting with that website without an adblocker is itself a great example of hypernormalization.
paulddraper
Please elaborate, what law does administrative leave violate?
alkonaut
If they don’t fulfill their end of the agreement (paying until the date in question) then surely any agreement to quit in return for X months pay would be broken? So you’d still be employed unless the pay out is made?
This is where I go ”I know nothing about US law but if I wouldn’t win this argument in any court even without representation then it must be fundamentally broken”
The argument would be ”those who entered the agreement didn’t have the authority to do so” but obviously that can’t hold water.
joe_the_user
The question is whether if the deal gets voided by the court, the employee has to still quit or whether they can then return. Especially since the employee wouldn't be formally terminated until the end of the twelve months.
kevmo314
> The buyout offer entitles federal employees to stop working more or less immediately and continue to be paid through Sept. 30.
> The federal workforce's normal attrition rate is about 6% a year, meaning some of those who've taken the buyout may have been planning to leave government service anyway.
Wow, talk about an amazing deal if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
bilekas
> Critics argue the offer is illegal, there's no real guarantee people will get paid out, and it's something Congress would need to authorize.
Give then history of this particular admistration & business', I personally wouldn't be too confident in actually getting paid up to Sept.
iancmceachern
Totally, all those Twitter people that never saw it...
tdeck
One key difference is that those businesses had to pay with Trump's money. While these employees will be paid with our money.
margalabargala
From his perspective, is there a difference?
bongodongobob
Elon and his little pawns are in the Treasury dept computers right now.
mcmcmc
That doesn’t matter. Trump gets off on cheating people to get a “win”.
Molitor5901
[flagged]
thesuperbigfrog
>> Congress technically already authorized it when it approved the FY 2025 budget. That's why they are getting paid to September. That money was already approved and appropriated by congress, signed into law, and is the budget for that agency. They're spending that money how congress directed them to, but in a way congress likely never anticipated.
No money has been appropriated beyond March 14th.
"the promise to pay employees beyond Mar. 14 is unauthorized. The Anti-Deficiency Act prohibits an agency from entering a contract 'before any appropriation is made unless authorized by law.' The deferred resignation program offers employees pay that is not currently appropriated. Current appropriations will expire on Mar. 14th and, therefore, agencies currently lack the legal authority to agree to pay employees beyond this date."
Source: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/will-employees-who-resi...
dekhn
Multiple people have pointed that you are factually incorrect, so probably best to stop repeating this in comments across the post.
skovati
Congress hasn't actually agreed on a FY2025 budget though right? We're just running on Continuing Resolutions currently. So the budget is actually subject to change when this CR runs out March 14th.
Jtsummers
There was no FY 2025 budget. It's all CRs again, currently through 14 March.
tstrimple
In addition to what the others have stated regarding the 2025 budget being locked... Congress also authorized a lot of the things being ransacked right now like USAID. The rule of law seems to offer very little real protections here. So much of the US government is run on precedent and tradition and is incredibly vulnerable (as we're finding out) to folks who give zero fucks about precedent and tradition. Unfortunately the Democratic Party is still completely beholden to those precedents and traditions and have absolutely no clue how to handle opponents who don't.
aurareturn
Wow, talk about an amazing deal if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
tombert
I also suspect that there really isn't nearly as much "waste" here as Musk is alleging, so we are going to be forced to re-hire people, while still paying a ton of workers for 8 months of no work.
This doesn't seem "efficient" to me, but "efficient" is a word that doesn't actually mean anything without context, which they don't provide.
gramie
Or even better, they can be brought back as contractors with vital skills and knowledge, at much higher cost!
scarface_74
Re-hire people for what? They don’t want a functioning government
rtkwe
A large part of the GOP playbook around their goal of smaller government is to make the government work worse then use that to argue government can't do the job and it shouldn't do it or it needs to be privatized. "We can't give immigrants their due process before deporting them that takes forever! (We also refuse to expand the number of judges serving those cases)" "Public schools are horrible and don't work! (We've been choking their budget for decades)" etc etc.
varsketiz
Well, it depends on what goals Trump and Musk consider worthwhile. Just hypothetically, if they dont consider healthcare for all a worthwhile goal - possibly every dollar spent on Obamacare is waste from their perspective.
I think they will find a lot of waste - question is if people in the USA will agree.
rsynnott
This is one of the problems with voluntary redundancy, which is quite common in some countries. You do tend to lose the people who can easily find jobs elsewhere and get left with the people who can’t, so it selects for a less skilled workforce when all’s said and done.
Molitor5901
I would not leave. Getting into the federal system was hard before, it's going to be near impossible now. For people who are not AI experts, engineers, doctors, etc. the federal government offers pay and benefits unparalleled to anything those same people would find in the private sector. Not to mention the job protections that really don't exist in any other private sector American company.
tombert
I feel like that used to be true, but I'm not sure it's been true for the last ~decade or so. My mom works for the federal government as an attorney. She likes her job, but she has mentioned to me that there are just as many layoff rounds, if not more, as you'd get in the private sector.
Moreover, there are a lot of things that are kind of bullshit; her office refused to provide paper towels or soap in the kitchen, so she had to spend her own money and bring them in herself.
Are soap or paper towels expensive? No, it's not beyond her means, but it's not like most private sector jobs "brag" about having paper towels near the sink, it's usually not considered a "perk".
ETA:
Just a note, these complaints go back to even the Obama years, I think.
robocat
I would also worry whether I would receive my pension payouts. Depending upon future governments to pay out for your work investment seems risky. My ignorant impression is that pension funds will always be raided (whether private or government) and payments seem to decrease regardless of past promises.
drewda
Here's a detailed look at how total compensation compares between the private sector and federal positions by education level: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235
The key takeaways:
- staffers with high school or some college make more, on average, working for federal gov't, primarily due to the benefits. But it's an exaggeration to describe the difference as "unparalleled"
- comp is roughly equivalent for holders of bachelor's
- comp for holders of professional degrees or doctorates (JD, MD, MBA, PhD) is significantly lower on average for federal jobs
snowwrestler
> For people who are not AI experts, engineers, doctors, etc. the federal government offers pay and benefits unparalleled to anything those same people would find in the private sector.
This is just not really true. I work in the private sector with former federal employees and every single one is making more money now than they were in government.
What is true is that there are jobs in the government that are not available at all in the private sector, like prosecutor, police officer, military officer, spy, law clerk, legislative director, special agent, etc.
Many of these require high educational achievement and/or expensive training and are compensated to attract talented people. But it’s also true that most of those people who leave for the private sector make more money there.
selectodude
What job protections? They’re predicated on the president following the constitution. We’re long, long past that.
scarface_74
You act as if the next step isn’t being fired and that the federal government won’t slash benefits.
pkulak
Yes... the job protections.
Aurornis
> if you already happened to be planning on leaving...
This is why you should ignore any absolute numbers about people taking the buyout.
You want to look at the relative percentage taking the deal compared to their normal turnover.
If the number of people taking the "buyout" isn't significantly higher than their normal turnover, that's a sign that they're just overpaying people who were already leaving.
giarc
I heard that on average 10,000 employees retire every month. So if you had planned to retire in Jan/Feb/Mar, you might as well take the buy out and gain a few extra months of basically "free pay". That is assuming that it actually arrives in your bank account.
bmitc
So in addition to the mockery, they're paying people to do what they were already going to do for free? Small government and low spending indeed ...
francisofascii
If you wanted to hit a "years of service" number, this may not count towards that.
squigz
Wait hold on - 20,000+ people being paid 8 months severance? That sounds... like a long time, and a lot of money. I'd have a hard time believing that.
Any takers around here want to elaborate on their choice?
n0rdy
I've always found this approach of reducing the number of employees unwise from the company perspective (but pretty good for the employees, though).
While the unsatisfied employees are the target, my observations indicate that a high percentage of active and skilled people are willing to take this offer, as they are sure that they will find a new place within a reasonable time, so it's basically, free money. And those are the people that the company should try to keep as much as it could. While the "give me a task with the perfect description, and I will do it" folks will stay until they are kicked out, as, usually, they are not up to taking the initiative.
That's why I saw how the companies that were changing the rules in the process: "well, it's an offer, but your manager needs to approve that first", and other tricks to be able to reject it for the top performers. Needless to say, it leads to the bad moral.
However, the companies I'm mentioning had way fewer employees than the federal workforce, so the chances are that with that size it's impossible to do it the "right" way.
feoren
> unwise from the company perspective
The goal is to destroy most of these federal agencies, so doing things that are "unwise" for the future of those agencies is exactly the point.
neonarray
Yes, but I believe this is the intent. It's not a matter of it being good for the business when the CEO of said business intentionally wants it to fail.
orasis
On a larger level, if the active & skilled people are taking the deal, doesn’t it mean they’re likely moving on to something that is a better fit and thus good for society anyway?
bangaladore
Part of two groups will leave, the actual skilled, hardworking people who know they can get another job. And the people who are retiring anyways.
Part of me thinks that just ends up with a higher percentage of worse workers.
Obviously many hard working people will stay, but you'd be pretty certain the people will little skill and value, ironically, are going to be the highest percentage that stay as they know its not going to be easy to get another job.
vaccineai
Good, we want the competent and skilled people within government to go to private enterprise in big numbers, so they can amplify their skills and effect in private enterprise. Then we can reduce the number of government agencies, because they are always less effective than private enterprises.
The problem is when we have the lazy and incompetent bureaucrats sticking around, and us the taxpayers are paying for their pension while getting back very little in return.
Honestly, I'm not sure what all the screaming and crying on hacker news is about; hackers are all about creating efficiency with unorthodox insights and skills. pretty sure no hackers have said "why yes, I've love to pay more in taxes for the bureaucrats to retire in style after doing very little"
heylook
> because they are always less effective than private enterprises.
I think this is one of those ideas that has been spouted for so long that we don't really stop to think about whether it is true. Private and public entities (and employees) certainly have different incentives, but they also have different mandates, and I've certainly known plenty of inefficient private enterprises and efficient public ones. Do you have any way of verifying or proving this idea that you can share?
rstuart4133
> I think this is one of those ideas that has been spouted for so long that we don't really stop to think about whether it is true.
A lot of people with considerable expertise in the area have looked into whether it's true. They almost always come to the same conclusion: overall it's a wash.
If you look closer some industries (like say your corner coffee shop in a big city) are clearly better off private, and others like roads and fire fighting don't work when privately held.
In general a competitive market will out-do public owned, free markets that aren't competitive are worse than public owned.
But there are always exceptions. A fine example is the health system. I don't know why, but as the US demonstrates even with a competitive health market public ownership outperforms a purely private system by a fairly large margin.
root_axis
My personal and probably not unique prediction is that these people will be let go and not be paid - same thing he did with twitter.
justin66
There are some pretty significant differences between Twitter employees and federal government employees, starting with the fact that a lot of latter group are part of a powerful union.
root_axis
Let's see what happens. At this point, I'm not convinced the union has any leverage.
bmitc
The federal employee unions have incredible power, often to the detriment of the government.
toss1
Sure, but even in a normal situation, all the Union can do is provide greater resources to initiate legal and possibly work actions. Which, in a normal situation might be very effective.
This is NOT anything resembling a normal situation; to treat it as such is merely an exercise in normalcy bias.
Under an authoritarian regime, as is being setup as we type, legal actions are irrelevant as the judicial and legislative branches lose independence and serve the executive. Work actions likely result in the union being decertified and dissolved.
elicash
They are part of a union (actually, different unions, plural). But none of those unions are among the more powerful unions.
ahi
patco was also a powerful union. Trump has already declared he will nullify the AFGE contract (legality be damned).
bongodongobob
Yeah well some dude from South Africa is running around in government buildings fucking with computers and no one seems to be doing anything about it. Anything goes these days. Union or not.
duxup
I think they'd "like" to, but he legal protections for the employees in this case are vast compared to twitter. But as an employee, I would worry that they would try... we already have an administration that SCOTUS has decided is above the law in other ways.
fred_is_fred
It is worth looking back at President Musk's previous actions here. I know the twitter engineers sued. Was it ever settled?
hypothesis
It appears most of those claims went to arbitration, so we are unlikely to learn results…
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/most-lawsuit-over-m...
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whamlastxmas
To make that blanket statement about twitter layoffs is just blatantly not true
root_axis
Which part isn't true?
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manbart
Doubt it... You'd be a fool to think you'd actually get the money
derektank
There's a lot of people that, due to their living situation, wouldn't be able to comply with the new executive order banning work from home. If the choice is between being fired either way, I can see many people opting to take the possibility of a severance while they find alternative work
throwawayguy867
I'm in this situation. I was hired fully remote (and no office to "return" to), many states away from DC and no intention to move (not for an administration that would have no scruples about firing me at any point, for any reason).
Since I'm fairly sure my goose is cooked either way, I am considering doing the deferred resignation thing just to get a few more dollars in my pocket before the inevitable comes.
throitallaway
All going according to plan.
desumeku
Is this where we're at now? Thinking that the new administration will just openly refuse to pay people's salaries as part of a formal deal?
kgermino
The offer mirrors Elon's offer to Twitter employees and many of them did not receive the money they were promised.
Elon doesn't have the legal authority to make this offer today, it's poorly defined, and not a standard separation policy for federal employees. I'm not saying they won't be paid out, but I would't bet my livelihood on it
neom
I looked into this and I find it kinda confusing. https://employmentlawweekly.com/uncategorized/500-million-se... && https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/McMilli...
snakeyjake
>Thinking that the new administration will just openly refuse to pay people's salaries as part of a formal deal?
The chief executive of the new administration is literally and actually widely known for doing that exact thing repeatedly, for decades and decades, up to and including screwing local municipalities who entered into binding legal agreements with him to incur expenses to be repaid in full as part of his campaign.
This is not bias or propaganda it is fact.
madeofpalk
What has the past actions of the administration shown us about trustworthy they are?
This is not where you were now. This is where you were four years ago.
ceejayoz
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/...
> Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will "protect your job." But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.
> In addition to the lawsuits, the review found more than 200 mechanic’s liens — filed by contractors and employees against Trump, his companies or his properties claiming they were owed money for their work — since the 1980s. The liens range from a $75,000 claim by a Plainview, N.Y., air conditioning and heating company to a $1 million claim from the president of a New York City real estate banking firm. On just one project, Trump’s Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, records released by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in 1990 show that at least 253 subcontractors weren’t paid in full or on time, including workers who installed walls, chandeliers and plumbing.
> In courtroom testimony, the manager of the general contractor for the Doral renovation admitted that a decision was made not to pay The Paint Spot because Trump “already paid enough.” As the construction manager spoke, “Trump’s trial attorneys visibly winced, began breathing heavily, and attempted to make eye contact” with the witness, the judge noted in his ruling.
roughly
All of that's handled by the treasury department payment systems, so as long as those are left alone, I'm sure it'll be fine.
evan_
I have some very bad news for you.
dekhn
Yes, that is the most probable outcome.
miltonlost
Do you know who the President and his crony is? Have you seen Musk and Trump lie, repeatedly, about paying invoices and stiffing people? Have you seen Musk not pay his Twitter employees after he took over? Do you have a memory problem?
drawkward
Why would you believe otherwise? Trump is notorious for nonpayment, and Elon doesn't exactly have a good record in that area w/r/t Twitter's severed employees. Sure, historically, you might claim something about the government meeting its obligations, but if the last two weeks have shown us anything, it is that President Trusk believes that nothing the government did before matters.
9rx
Of course, if they decide to not pay you it won't matter if you took this or tried to keep your job. So you may get a head start and turn your time to searching for a new job now. If they do end up following through with the buyout payments in the end, that is an added bonus.
axus
This is why the deadline is before the next paycheck :P
Molitor5901
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rob74
The budget for USAID was also appropriated by Congress, but they still decided to freeze everything "pending review" (instead of at least reviewing while initially leaving things running), and then locked out domestic employees and recalled overseas employees - all without consulting Congress. So they obviously don't care one bit about what they are legally required to do. And why should they, as long as they have the supreme interpreters of laws firmly in their corner?
sitkack
I don't know why you keep repeating this everywhere. It is not a sure thing. And legality has no bearing anymore.
neaden
OK so? Do you think the president has to obey the laws? Will the FBI arrest him if they don't? What do you think the consequence will realistically be?
justin66
The consequence of those people not being paid is that they'd sue the government as a class, win, and then be paid.
Brybry
Here's one of the template agreements: especially read #13. I'm not a lawyer but I would have serious concerns. [1]
kgermino
Nope, it's only budgeted through March 14th, noticeably before September 31st
scarface_74
Who is going to enforce the law? Trump appointed judges? Even if the lawsuits are successful, our system depends on the Executive branch respecting the verdict.
At least during his last term you had Republicans on both the state and federal levels who weren’t sycophants. They’ve all died, retired or are now kissing the ring.
null
drawkward
This is a very naive comment, given the blatantly unconstitutional behavior that has happened in the last two weeks.
alberth
Just some context:
2.9M federal employees
0.6% have taken buyout
dpkirchner
And something like 100k retire every year, so I'd bet a lot of these folks are people who were about to retire anyway.
https://www.opm.gov/retirement-center/retirement-statistics/
NotYourLawyer
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techapple
Interesting they say their goal is 5-10% when normal attrition is six percent, that means essentially their goal is -6 to 4%
csa
> Interesting they say their goal is 5-10% when normal attrition is six percent, that means essentially their goal is -6 to 4%
Basically, yes.
If they had worked within the existing VSIP (voluntary separation) and VERA (early retirement) systems, maybe by tweaking things like max payouts, they could have almost guaranteed 10%+ by September, imho.
The haphazard and non-standard way they’ve gone about it, however, makes me think that they will be at the low end of their range.
The other possible explanations are:
- they don’t really intend to pay those who resign (e.g., via admin leave status and then having a furlough in March)
- their ultimate goal is to have people not take the deal so that they can just fire with impunity. Imho, this type of reduction will only work for folks on probation (who, imho, are the only ones who should actually consider taking the resignation offer).
chairmansteve
The plan seems to be to fire almost all government emoloyees. The only historical parallel I can come up with is the De Baathification program in Iraq 2003.
tdeck
Completely destroying a government so that contracfors from the US private sector could sweep in and take over? I fail to see the parallels.
headsupernova
Seems 1:1?
slt2021
so Trump is doing to USA what USA did to Iraq?
Poetic justice
9283409232
RAGE is one of the main points of this entire department. Retire All Government Employees.
Maxious
For further context, "Retire All Government Employees" is slogan from proponents of what became project 2025 https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24266512/jd-vance-curtis...
You can read the actual 180 day plan to "deconstruct the Administrative State" in the infamous Project 2025 manifesto https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FUL...
yurlungur
Warlords period soon?
carabiner
NYTimes wrote about this:
> Rather than de-Baathifaction, Trump and Musk are giving us de-wokeification. Expect the same ruinous results.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/opinion/trump-musk-iraq-t...
bgnn
Collapse oc the DDR smd Soviet Union maybe?
duxup
Being asked to take a deal that the administration may be offering illegally is a wild situation to be in. Especially when the administration doing so seems to have little regard for the law, and SCOTUS has deemed them above the law to some extent.
Are you making a deal they will actually pay, and could it be that the administration simply chooses to ignore the courts?
sampton
20k represents 1%. The target is 5-10%. The messaging is 100-200k federal layoff is coming.
s3r3nity
These tend to work through in stages: fastest ones to accept were already looking, and next up are those that are on the fence, and so on...
The 8-month buyout offer is significantly better than the one-time offer from Clinton in the 90's [1], even adjusting for inflation, so I'd expect that there's a large group of individuals & families that are just taking the time to evaluate the decision.
[https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-buyo...]
umeshunni
Amazing. That offer (and website in general) look and sound identical to what the current administration is proposing.
zerocrates
Well, except that Clinton went to Congress for authorization to make those offers and got a law passed, and didn't do a blanket offer to every employee they could blast out an email to, and did them as actual buyouts rather than extended no-work leave.
leoqa
Interesting precedent thanks for sharing.
varsketiz
Since the turover rate per year is 6%, implemented hiring freeze would yield theese results.
bhouston
Which is exactly what Canadian government has been doing for a while now after the service ballooned during the pandemic, e.g.: https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPublicServants/comments/1g9qy...
pixl97
1) You're assuming these leadership clowns are that smart
2) They are targeting particular employees more.
sampton
Does the 6% number includes churn between departments? Unless ICE can absorb 100k+ headcount the number will be much lower this year.
vaccineai
there is a hiring freeze https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/hiri.... this buyout is meant to accelerate
tootie
They have separately promised $1T or even $2T in cuts and and laying off 200K won't even come close. Not to mention they are offering these as blanket buyouts seemingly without regard for job function so they will inevitably end up needing to hire back some percentage of roles unless (as I suspect) they intend to just stop doing a bunch of critical work.
vaccineai
it's now 40k, so 2%. https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/02/05/trumps-fede...
numpad0
Not an American, but the reported resignation process of just sending arbitrary content email with subject "resign" to "hr@opm.gov" feels like the real aim is to collect emails and response time data to establish cluster system health metric to determine which nodes can be murdered safely.
It's almost strange to me that this aspect, and stupidity of injecting non-compiling code to human mainframes collective that runs on legalese in an attempt to collect such data, seem to be rarely discussed.
toast0
> Not an American, but the reported resignation process of just sending arbitrary content email with subject "resign" to "hr@opm.gov" feels like the real aim is to collect emails and response time data to establish cluster system health metric to determine which nodes can be murdered safely.
Is that all it takes? Think they check DKIM and SPF?
IncreasePosts
Try spoofing an email from trump@whitehouse.gov with the title "resign" and find out.
numpad0
It's all completely crazy. There are rumors that some of offer emails didn't pass DMARC in the first place. Reportedly it started with someone from xAI showing up at an OPM physical location with a computer to plug into the network. People calling it coup or analogizing the ops team to Chinese Red Guards aren't exaggerating.
IAmGraydon
You have a source for these rumors, I'm sure?
I think the main issue for anyone wanting to take the offer is simply: this was never authorized by congress, so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best. Meanwhile, there's a government funding deadline on March 14, 2025. So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.
It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.