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KING MUSK’S GOVERNMENT PURGE HITS A SNAG  
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Ryan Cooper
February 5, 2025
The American Prospect
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_ Before Elon Musk and Donald Trump can exercise authoritarian power,
he must purge the federal bureaucracy. But federal workers aren’t
playing ball. Federal workers see they are the targets of an
authoritarian attempt to abolish democracy. _

Protesters gather outside the United States Office of Personal
Management (OPM) headquarters, February 4, 2025, in Washington.,
Protesters gather outside the United States Office of Personal
Management (OPM) headquarters, February 4, 2025, in
Washington.Protesters gather outside the United States Office of
Personal Management (OPM) headquarters, February 4, 2025, in
Washington.

 

It is now clear beyond any question that Elon Musk is de facto
president of the United States—indeed, not just that, but a ruler
who is exercising more power than any president in American history.
Central to his effort to consolidate that power further is his ongoing
plot to purge the federal bureaucracy and replace anyone not loyal to
himself with toadies and cronies, much like how Stalin cemented his
dictatorship
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the Soviet Union in the 1920s.

The plan follows how Musk ruined Twitter
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He is offering a so-called buyout to most government employees,
attempting to convince them to leave with a big cash bribe—but with
a tight deadline. A recent email to a federal employee provided to
the _Prospect_ outlines the details. The “deferred resignation
offer—which allows eligible employees to keep their government pay
and benefits through September 30, 2025, without any expectation of
performing work—expires on February 6, 2025,” it reads. Even CIA
employees
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received this offer, after Musk initially exempted national-security
positions.

Unfortunately for the would-be dictator, almost no one is taking him
up on the offer. About 20,000 have accepted the buyout
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according to Axios, which amounts to 1 percent of the federal
government, many multiples less than normal annual turnover. So to
sweeten the pot, _The Washington Post_ reports
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Musk cronies are threatening mass layoffs, and the recent destruction
of USAID
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other purges across the government
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plenty of evidence that they’re serious about it. But four federal
labor unions have filed a lawsuit 
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to block Musk’s deferred resignation plan.

The reasons for suspicion among federal workers are obvious. Most
immediately, as the National Labor Relations Board Union points out
on Bluesky
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is no legal basis for such a buyout, and its promises violate several
regulations. One section, for instance, says that employees can seek
outside employment before they officially leave work, but this poses
obvious potential violations of conflict-of-interest rules. Anyone
attempting to get such a job would run considerable legal risk.

More practically, with no legal basis for the agreement, there is no
guarantee that the promised wages will actually be paid. Musk, like
Donald Trump, is notorious for stiffing people on contracts; last
year, he was hit with a $128 million class action lawsuit
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alleged failure to pay severance to former Twitter executives. Even if
the contract were legal, there is every chance that Musk would break
his word and refuse to pay. Indeed, right now Musk (in another repeat
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his Twitter takeover shenanigans) is reportedly considering
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all federal leases under the General Services Administration. Another
Musk crony is fiddling
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the highly delicate federal payments system, which disburses about $5
trillion annually, in a possible effort to set up some way to block
payments to politically disfavored groups.

Such suspicion is only strengthened by the wording of the buyout
agreement, which not only seems to contradict itself, but also
contains a stipulation that appears to block workers from legal action
if the government violates its own agreement. The description of the
agreement states that “pay will be protected even if there is a
lapse in appropriations,” but later that the administrative leave it
describes will be subject “to the availability of appropriations.”
Well, which is it? That’s not a rhetorical question, since current
appropriations run out on March 14, even as this agreement purports to
pay people out through September 30.

Later, it states that an employee taking the agreement “forever
waives … any action against [the agency] that is based on, arising
from, or related to Employee’s employment at [the agency] of the
deferred resignation offer.” It further requires that an “Employee
similarly waives any claim that could be brought on Employee’s
behalf by another entity, including Employee’s labor union.” As
the NLRB Union concludes: “Essentially, it would be nearly
impossible to enforce this contract against the Agency in the event of
a breach or violation of its terms by the federal government.”

More broadly, as my colleague David Dayen points out
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the entire buyout idea flagrantly violates both federal employment law
and the union agreements at federal agencies. There are elaborate
rules about hiring and firing federal workers having to do with
position, seniority, ethics, political influence, and so forth. This
isn’t like some Silicon Valley startup where workers can be fired en
masse on a whim. One of the reasons federal workers—who are
generally highly educated and skilled, and could probably get more
money in the private sector if they wished—take these positions is
job security. Musk is trying to burn that promise to the ground.

In short, you’d be a fool to take this deal. It’s both wildly
illegal and almost certainly a lie.

All this is why the unions have filed their lawsuit. Musk’s
“buyout” offer is so wildly at odds with federal law and
regulations that any honest judge would rule in their favor
practically automatically. Whether the Trump appointees filling the
Supreme Court will do so, of course, is another question.

Finally, it is clear to many in the federal workforce that they are
the targets of an authoritarian attempt to abolish democracy and the
Constitution. Federal workers, in addition to their numerous ethics
and security requirements, are required to swear an oath
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Constitution—something neither Musk nor any of his goons have done.
Likely Musk could have eased current workers out over time and
gradually built up his own cadres without such a dispute, but being so
aggressive in a baldly illegal manner will only inspire backlash. In
fact, civil servants are organizing against the buyout, starting with
a memo [[link removed]] making many of the
points in this article.

Who knows where this will all end. But this is where we are as a
country: An unelected foreign billionaire who bought the presidency
wholesale is attempting to make himself emperor of the United States
by turning the federal government into his own personal plaything.

_[RYAN COOPER is the Prospect’s managing editor, and author of
‘How Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest
Question in Politics
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He was previously a national correspondent for The Week.]_

_Read the original article at Prospect.org
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_Used with the permission. © The American Prospect
[[link removed]], Prospect.org, 2025 [[link removed]].
All rights reserved.  _

_Support the American Prospect [[link removed]]._

_Click here [[link removed]] to support the Prospect's
brand of independent impact journalism_

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