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Trump administration offers the roughly 2 million federal workers a buyout to resign

An email went out to the federal workforce Tuesday evening.

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Jan. 28, 2025, 5:30 PM EST / Updated Jan. 28, 2025, 7:13 PM EST

By Garrett Haake and Amanda Terkel

President Donald Trump's administration is offering federal workers the chance to take a "deferred resignation" with a severance package of roughly eight months of pay and benefits.

A senior administration official told NBC News that they expect 5%-10% of the federal workforce to quit, which, they estimate, could lead to around $100 billion in savings.

All full-time federal employees are eligible, except for members of the military, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, positions related to immigration enforcement and national security and other jobs excluded by agencies.

"American taxpayers pay for the salaries of federal government employees, and therefore deserve employees working on their behalf who actually show up to work in our wonderful federal buildings, also paid for by taxpayers," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. "If they don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of 8 months."

Axios first reported the buyout offer.

We’re looking to hear from federal government workers. If you’re willing to talk with us, please email us at tips@nbcuni.com or contact us through one of these methods.

The offer went out to the federal workforce through a new system the Trump administration set up that gives officials the ability to email all federal employees at once.

The email included a draft resignation letter for them to review. If a person wishes to resign, they will be able to reply with the word "resign."

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The resignation period will begin Tuesday and go through Feb. 6.

"If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce," the email that will be sent to federal workers reads. "At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions."

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Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is now in charge of Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, famously sent a similar email to employees shortly after he took over Twitter, which he renamed X, asking them to opt in to keep working at the company.

White House officials wouldn't say whether he was involved in the current effort. But the subject line of the email that will be sent to federal workers is: "Fork in the Rroad."

Musk now has a post pinned on X of an art piece he commissioned called "A Fork in the Road."

Garrett Haake

Garrett Haake is NBC News' senior White House correspondent.

Amanda Terkel

Amanda Terkel is politics managing editor for NBC News Digital.

3 hours ago -

Business

Scoop: Trump offering buyouts to all federal workers

Marc Caputo

Emily Peck

Image of donald trump in the oval office

Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The White House will issue a memo Tuesday offering to pay federal workers who don't want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6.

Why it matters: It's an acceleration in President Trump's already unprecedented purge of the federal workforce.

Driving the news: The Office of Personnel Management described the offer as administrative leave with pay and benefits.

A spokeswoman confirmed agencies will receive details later Tuesday. They will also be able to carve out exemptions.

Zoom in: "The government-wide email being sent today is to make sure that all federal workers are on board with the new administration's plan to have federal employees in office and adhering to higher standards. We're five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable," a senior administration official tells Axios.

The White House expects 5% to 10% of federal employees to accept the offer, which would potentially mean hundreds of thousands of people.

The administration projects the buyouts could ultimately save taxpayers up to $100 billion a year.

The offer applies to all full-time federal employees, except for military personnel, the Postal Service, and those working in immigration enforcement or national security.

The big picture: The memo is just the latest step in the White House's unprecedented move to push career federal workers out of their jobs, and, observers say, replace them with loyalists — a return to a patronage system that federal law sought to banish more than a century ago.

On Monday, the administration offered more details on its plan to reclassify thousands of federal civil servants, stripping them of legal protections from firing, in a memo to agency heads.

The executive order and the guidance is a way to make it easier to fire civil servants and turn what had been career jobs into patronage jobs, said Sharon Parrott, head of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former Office of Management and Budget appointee under Obama.

The moves "will almost surely lead many expert, knowledgeable career civil servants to withhold their best advice," Parrott tells Axios.

Between the lines: Many federal workers are already feeling scared about the administration's crackdown on DEI, its return-to-office policy and the reclassification efforts.

That unease could increase take-up on this new offer.

The offer could also spur the most talented federal employees with the best private-sector prospects to leave, according to Terry Clower, an economist who studies the capital region at George Mason University.

"So how does that work if you're trying to accelerate government efficiency if who you drive away are your best workers?" Clower tells Axios.

What they're saying: The largest federal employee union, known as AFGE, denounced the buyouts.

"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," its president Everett Kelley said in a statement.

Reality check: The White House claim that only 6% of federal workers are in-person is widely disputed, and contradicted by data released by the Biden administration last month.

State of play: Earlier on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the president has the authority to fire federal employees.