Musk’s Words Worth Revisiting for Feds Pondering Offer to Leave

The biggest thing worth remembering about the “deferred resignation” offers that went out to most federal employees on Tuesday is that subject line, “Fork in the Road,” was, word for word, the one that Elon Musk sent around to Twitter employees before wiping out most of its workforce.

The letters also have a ring of familiarity from Musk’s manifestos on the mission of his Department of Government Efficiency to eviscerate the federal workforce.

Federal employee unions and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) have already raised doubts about whether President Donald Trump can be trusted to actually pay feds through September if they elect to leave. But the real question, given how much he has Trump’s ear on anything about spending, might be: Can Musk be trusted?

So it’s instructive to look at how Musk handled the job cuts at Twitter.

First, to be clear on one key element—for all of the headlines characterizing the letter to federal workers as a buyout offer, it’s not.

There’s only a dubious promise to pay employee salaries and benefits until Sept. 30, with the expectation employees will resign by that date. It’s soliciting people to resign—literally, feds are being asked to type “resign” in the subject line of a reply if they want to take the offer. The Office of Personnel Management has clarified, and DOGE reinforced on X, that feds who take the offer don’t even have to stick around.

So, might “resign” actually mean “resign”? As in, OK federal worker, we’ll take your resignation right now, with nada?

That’s not far from what happened at Twitter after Musk took it over, according to a number of lawsuits filed by former employees.

In one case, Musk and X have defended claims of unpaid severance benefits by arguing that certain employees voluntarily resigned their posts. The employees say they were compelled to resign in the wake of Musk’s takeover because they were given illegal marching orders—including instructions to illegally break Twitter’s leases—that would have left them permanently unemployable in their fields if followed.

Three former high-level Twitter employees seeking eight-figure severance payments alleged in a 2024 lawsuit that Musk “strung them along with promises of providing their separation benefits until abruptly, hours before the end of their notice period on the Sunday evening of Thanksgiving weekend, he terminated them ‘for Cause’ while not specifying a single piece of evidence demonstrating such ‘Cause.’”

A proposed class action seeking at least $500 million on behalf of 6,000 employees says workers were promised their severance plan would remain intact post-merger and then given a fraction of what they were owed once mass layoffs began. Musk argued in court filings that there’s “no such thing” as a Twitter severance plan and prevailed in district court (the workers appealed to the Ninth Circuit with support from the US Department of Labor).

Another lawsuit, by Twitter’s former chief marketing officer, says she was wrongly denied about $20 million after being abruptly fired based on a disagreement connected to Trump’s Twitter account.

As much of an uphill climb as it’s been for Twitter workers, feds will have at least as tough a go if they try to sue after agreeing to administrative leave, said Mary Kuntz, partner at Kalijarvi, Chuzi, Newman & Fitch, PC, who represents federal employees challenging discrimination at work. They’re probably better off holding off on legal challenges until they’re laid off.

There’s also a real question of whether a blanket offer of administrative leave is even legal: a federal rule that became final just two weeks ago states that administrative leave can only be used for 10 working days per calendar year.

It’s a tough and very individual call for each of the 2 million feds who got the email. But as Musk once posted himself on X: “Believe what you see, not what you’re told.”