Thedeferred resignation program (DRP) was an offer given to employees of the U.S. federal government near the start of thesecond Trump administration. The program started with a memo titled "Fork in the Road" sent on January 28, 2025, by theU.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to all employees of theU.S. federal civil service. The memo, the first mass message to all roughly two million federal employees, offered the DRP for those unwilling to work under thesecond presidency of Donald Trump. The memo led to confusion about its authorship and legality, with several federal employee labor unions and political leaders advising employees not to accept the offer. Ultimately, about 6.7% of the federal civilian workforce resigned under the program, with more than 154,000 drawing a full salary for more than 6 months.[1]
During the2024 United States presidential election, then-candidateDonald Trump proposed downsizing the federal civil service and publicly considered a potential role for businessmanElon Musk.[2] After the election, Trump and Musk announced theDepartment of Government Efficiency, who proclaimed that they intended to eliminate wasteful spending.[3] Several high-profile members of whatPolitico andVox call the "tech right", including Musk andMarc Andreessen, have expressed desires to restructure the federal civil service to better support Trump's agenda.[4][3]
On the first day of Trump's administration, he issued thepresidential memorandum "Return to In-Person Work", directing agencies to cancel allremote work agreements.[5][6] Similarly, the administration directed OPM to categorize some employees under the controversialPolicy/Career appointment authority, removingcompetitive service job protections for positions considered "policy-related".[7]
In the first week of Trump's administration, rapid changes to federal programs and reassignments of career staff led to confusion and fear amongst federal employees.[8][2] On January 25, OPM began sending test emails to all civil servants. As human resources communications in the government are generally kept within each agency, the emails were often flagged as spam and confused employees.[9]
On January 28, 2025, an email entitled "Fork in the Road" was sent to the roughly two million civilian employees of the US government.[10] Besides the immediately preceding test emails, it was the first-ever mass email to all federal civilian employees.[9] According to the memo, employees who accepted the DRP would be placed onadministrative leave, retain all employment benefits, and be paid in full through September 30, 2025, but have no work duties.[11][12]
Several publications noted the similarities to an offer given toTwitter employees after itsacquisition by Elon Musk, including an identical title.[13][4][14][15] A January 28Wired article uncovered that several high-ranking OPM staff were former employees of Musk, including a recent high school graduate,[16] whichFortune connected to the memo's similarities to that of Twitter.[17]The Washington Post reported that the memo had been drafted and sent entirely by staff close to Musk, bypassing political officials in the White House.[18]Reuters likewise reported that employees of Musk had moved beds into OPM to stay in the director's office around the clock and had locked out career staff, a situation one of the career staff described as a "hostile takeover" of the agency.[19]
OPM excluded from the offermilitary andU.S. Postal Service workers, as well as immigration enforcement and national security positions.[20] It also allowed agencies to exempt further positions. TheCybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency andU.S. Customs and Border Protection exempted their entire staff, and theSocial Security Administration exempted a vast majority of its positions.[21][22] TheDepartment of Veterans Affairs stated that its agencies reserved the option of rejecting resignation requests from those in essential services such as health care, public safety, and law enforcement.[23]
On January 31, OPM approved Voluntary Early Retirement Authority for all agencies.[21] On February 3, a new deferred resignation agreement form was sent that provided more details and legal assurances.[24]
More than three-quarters of employees surveyed byFederal News Network told the news agency that they did not plan to accept the offer. Of the 11% who intended to accept, more than half already had plans to retire from or otherwise leave the civil service.[25] While the White House reportedly expected about 10% of the federal civilian work force to accept the deal, only about 40,000 employees – or about 2% of the workforce – had accepted the deal by February 5, the day before the original deadline.[26]
Some of those who accepted the offer were later told that they were "exempt".[27] Some of those terminated had to be hastily re-hired, notably workers in nuclear safety roles. Contact details had not been collected, making re-hiring logistically difficult.[28] In other cases, probationary employees who had accepted the offer were subsequentlylaid off and told that "a determination was made that probationary employees are not eligible and will be terminated", even though this was not among the exclusions specified in the memo.[29]
As July 31, 2025, more than 154,000 federal employees were still being paid full salaries to be on administrative leave, about 6.7% of the civilian workforce.[1]
The legality of the offer has been questioned by many.[18]Patty Murray, vice chair of theUnited States Senate Committee on Appropriations, warned that Congress had not given statutory authority nor appropriated funds for the offer.[30] SenatorTim Kaine likewise cautioned that there may not be authority to pay those who take the offer, warning employees that they may be "stiffed" by the administration if they resign.[12][2]
The federal government was funded through acontinuing resolution set to expire on March 15, 2025, despite the offer to pay salaries through September 30, 2025.[18] TheAntideficiency Act means that the US government cannot enter into unfunded contracts. On February 5, several Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Acting Office of Personnel Management DirectorCharles Ezell, describing the program as "legally dubious" and requesting clarification on how it complies with the Antideficiency Act.[31]
A lawsuit filed by federal employee unions alleged that the DRP violated theAdministrative Procedure Act.[32][33] On February 6, 2025, JudgeGeorge A. O'Toole Jr. of theU.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts placed the deadline on hold pending a February 10 hearing.[26][34][35] He lifted the suspension on February 12, ruling that the unions lackedstanding and his court did not have jurisdiction.[36][27]
Labor unions representing federal civil servants opposed the memo and advised their members not to take the offer. TheAmerican Federation of Government Employees stated that the resignation scheme should be viewed as coercive rather than voluntary as it immediately followed the annulment of remote work and other workplace benefits.[14] TheNational Treasury Employees Union likewise indicated that the offer was intended to "scare" employees into accepting, and strongly urged its members to ignore it.[37] TheInternational Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers found the offer to be too vague to advise members to accept.[30]
On February 3, several federal employees protested outside the headquarters of OPM.[38] Some protestors used forks to symbolise the Musk letter.[27]
Workers "embraced the digital cutlery" using thespoon emoji (🥄) – a symbol from the protests of theTwitter layoffs, to protest the "fork" offer. The spoon emoji has been removed from some work platforms, after employees "unleashed a torrent of spoon emojis in the chat that accompanied an organization-wide, 600-person video conference with new leaderThomas Shedd, a formerTesla engineer". Some have also added the emoji to theirSlack status.[39]
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