Judge hits pause on Trump/Musk federal workforce buyout deadline

Less than 12 hours before the Trump administration’s midnight Thursday deadline for 2 million federal workers to decide whether to accept a controversial buyout plan, a federal judge temporarily paused the clock, setting a hearing on the matter for Monday. Three unions representing about 800,000 federal workers filed the lawsuit to stop the deadline.

In an email sent to more than 2 million federal workers last week, the Office of Personnel Management set a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Thursday for employees to accept the buyout, which has prompted confusion and uncertainty among Virginia’s large population of federal workers who were promised a seven months’ salary severance package if they resigned by the deadline.

As of Wednesday night, more than 40,000 federal workers, or about 2%, had accepted Trump’s offer, according to a Washington Post report, well below the 5% to 10% in resignations President Donald Trump and his selected Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head, Elon Musk, have been aiming for.

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, sent a message to Virginia’s federal workers, many of whom aren’t sure whether their jobs will exist this time next year, to not trust or accept the buyout.

Kaine noted that Virginia has about 140,000 residents who work for the federal government. Some employees have been locked out of their offices and computers. Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and the owner of SpaceX, Tesla and X, has gained access to millions of federal employees’ personal information, including salary details and addresses, according to news reports.

“I know it has been — and will continue to be — tough,” Kaine said. “Donald Trump and his cronies are determined to do anything they can to knock you off course. They’ve even dangled a phony buyout in your face. But make no mistake: That buyout is a trap. Donald Trump has no authority to offer you a resignation buyout. Don’t trust a guy with a long history of stiffing contractors by taking him up on a sham deal that he won’t follow through on.”

Kaine’s Virginia colleague, senior Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, said in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing for health secretary last week that federal workers should consider whether Trump “in his business world ever fulfilled his contracts or obligations to any workers in the past.”

On Jan. 28, the federal Office of Personnel Management sent an email to approximately 2.3 million federal workers bearing the subject line “Fork in the Road,” the same language Musk used in a buyout offer email to his employees when he first purchased social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

The “deferred resignation” deal is available to all full-time federal employees except for military personnel and employees of the U.S. Postal Service, immigration enforcement and national security, according to the Trump administration. People who stay in the federal workforce must agree to return to their offices five days a week and abide by new “performance standards” and “standards of conduct” that require employees who are “loyal, trustworthy and who strive for excellence in their daily work.”

Meanwhile, in Richmond, Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott on Wednesday announced the creation of the bipartisan Emergency Committee on the Impacts of Federal Workforce and Funding Reductions, a 12-delegate committee that will collect and analyze data on the potential scope of federal workforce and funding cuts, assess economic and budgetary impacts on the state and listen to state agencies, businesses and nonprofits to “understand their concerns and gather mitigation strategies.”

The committee will provide policy recommendations for the 2026 General Assembly session and present a final report by Dec. 15.

In a Feb. 4 letter to the House of Delegates’ clerk, Scott wrote, “This administration has stated its intent to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce and to shift workers from the Washington, D.C., region to other areas of the country. Likewise, the newly formed advisory Department of Government Efficiency has a stated goal to significantly cut the size of the federal government.”

He also noted the hiring freeze put in place by executive order Jan. 20, the day Trump was inaugurated. Also, Scott wrote, Virginia is the “top state in the nation for place of performance of federal contracts,” with total contracts in 2023 at $106 billion. If the White House reduces federal contracts along with workforce layoffs, “Virginia will see a disproportionate impact on the economy,” the letter says.

Chaired by Democratic Del. David Bulova, the committee includes five Republican delegates and seven Democrats.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, however, has defended the new administration’s actions, saying in a news conference late last month that Trump “received a massive, massive vote of confidence by the American people,” following a Trump-led freeze on $3 trillion in federal funding that was quickly rescinded. Youngkin also has expressed support for a five-day-a-week return to office order, saying it would help the Metro system overcome its recent funding shortfalls.

As for losing federal jobs in the commonwealth, Youngkin has said that former federal workers can qualify for private-sector jobs in Virginia, where 295,000 jobs were vacant in November 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Jan. 17.