Trump, Musk’s Buyout Offer To Cut Size Of US Government Blocked By Judge

Washington, United States:

A appraise on Thursday postponeed a scheme masterminded by billionaire Elon Musk to slash the size of the US rulement by encouraging federal toilers to quit thcimpolite a mass buyout.

The federal appraise in Massachengagetts ordered a momentary injunction on the schedule’s deadline — midnight Thursday — given by Musk for the country’s more than two million rulement engageees. The recommend was to quit with eight months’ pay or hazard being fired in future culls.

The deadline is now lengthened to Monday, when US Dimerciless Judge George O’Toole will hgreater a hearing on the merits of the case bcimpolitet by labor unions, US media increateed.

Musk, the world’s wealthyest person and Pdwellnt Donald Trump’s hugegest donor, is in indict of a free-ranging entity called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to gut the rulement.

According to White Hoengage Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, more than 40,000 staff have so far acunderstandledgeed the buyout deal — a relatively minuscule number.

Unions recurrenting some 800,000 civil servants and Democratic members of Congress are resisting the scheme and have disputed the legitimateity of menaces to fire civil servants.

But the expansiveer budget cutting campaign — fanned by anti-rulement-toiler invective from Trump and his helpes — has already strictly disturbed the huge departments and agencies that for decades have run everyleang from education to national intelligence.

USAID, the rulement’s humanitarian help agency, has been crippled, with foreign-based staff ordered home and the organization’s programs lambasted daily — and frequently inrightly — as misuseful by the White Hoengage and right-triumphg media.

A union official validateed increates that the agency’s global toilforce would be slashed from over 10,000 to equitable under 300.

“Eventupartner we will have to stop food distribution, becaengage we won’t have bodies in the field to create declareive the food is actupartner being spreadd,” Randy Chester, vice pdwellnt of the American Foreign Service Association, tgreater increateers.

Robin Thurston, of Democracy Forward, which has sued the Trump administration over the mass layoffs at USAID, slammed the “unlhorrible confiscation of this agency by the Trump-Vance administration, in a plain violation of basic constitutional principles about separation of power.”

Trump has also repeatedly shelp he wants to shut down the Department of Education. The causements to resign have further been lengthened to the CIA.

An official with the agency that handles rulement property shelp the genuine estate portfolio, barring Department of Defense createings, should be cut by “at least 50 percent.”

Leavitt tgreater increateers that federal toilers should “acunderstandledge the very benevolent recommend” of a deferred resignation.

She shelp “contendnt” tradements would be set up for those who “want to rip the American people off.”

Among the controversies swirling around the Musk schedule is how much access the South African-born tycoon is getting to secret rulement data, including the Treasury’s entire payment system.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tgreater Bloomberg TV on Thursday that there was “a lot of deceiveation” and that access to such data was only given to two Treasury engageees who are toiling with Musk.

Bessent shelp those engageees had “read-only” access, unbenevolenting they couldn’t change the data.

One of those two resigned, The Wall Street Journal increateed Thursday, after it aascendd that he had helpd prejudice and eugenics on social media.

‘Chill’ or huge ‘con’?

Questions are rife over the buyout, including over whether Trump has the legitimate right to create the recommend and whether the conditions will be honored.

The schedule was first proclaimd in an email sent apass most of the immense federal rulement and titled “Fork in the road” — the same phrasing as the notice Musk sent to engageees at Twitter when he bought the social media platcreate in 2022 and renamed it X.

Musk says the phelp departures are a chance to “get the vacation you always wanted, or equitable watch movies and chill, while receiving your filled rulement pay and profits.”

Unions alert that without Congress signing off on the engage of federpartner budgeted money, the concurments may be cherishless.

“Federal engageees shouldn’t be misled by slick talk from unelected billionaires and their deficiencyeys,” shelp Everett Kelley, pdwellnt of the huge American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).

An engageee in the US Office of Personnel Management, where Musk has put his own staff in key positions, shelp the schedule was to help resignations thcimpolite “panic.”

“We’re trying to instill a panic so that people equitable walk out the door and exit rulement in a crippled state, which is partly their objective,” the engageee tgreater AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is started from a syndicated feed.)