Elon Musk's federal worker buyout plan temporarily blocked

A federal judge on Thursday paused the deadline for millions of federal workers to decide whether to accept the offer from President Donald Trump's administration to resign with the promise of months of full pay, as a fight over the lawfulness of the buyout push goes forward.

US District Judge George O’Toole announced at a brief hearing that he would block the administration implementing the offer until he holds another conference on February 10 on a longer-term halt.

Mr O’Toole said that he was barring US officials from carrying out the directive to allow time for “proper consideration” of the issues.

Federal employees will receive formal notice of the judge’s order, a US Justice Department lawyer confirmed during the hearing. More than 40,000 employees − representing about 2 per cent of the workforce − had signed up for the resignation offer ahead of the February 6 deadline, according to Bloomberg.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, has been tasked by Mr Trump with eliminating government waste. To that end, federal employees received the buyout offer on January 28 by email − in messaging that was similar to the message Mr Musk had sent to employees of the social media platform Twitter after he bought it and renamed it X.

The message said US employees who took the offer would not be expected to continue performing their jobs and would keep their pay and benefits through until September. It included language that the unions described as “barely veiled threats” of being fired if they did not resign.

The unions contend that the administration caused “sheer chaos” by trying to import “Musk’s questionable private-sector business model to the federal government”. They argued the resignation offer was a pretext to clear out positions across federal agencies to refill with new hires “on an ideological basis”.

The challengers to Mr Musk's order argued that a temporary reprieve was needed because they would be “irreparably harmed by long-lasting impacts of the rushed and ill-informed choice … foisted upon their members”.

Caught up in the battle is the future of the US Agency for International Development, which helps to administer US foreign aid. After taking office, Mr Trump ordered a freeze on foreign aid, pending review, and employees of USAID worldwide were placed on leave.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced this week that he is now the acting administrator of USAID, amid rumours the independent agency could be moved under his department's authority.

The move has raised alarm not only among employees but also countries that depend on US aid to alleviate poverty and provide jobs.

Mr Musk has described USAID as a “criminal organisation” that was “beyond repair”.

“Time for it to die,” he said in a post on X.