Summary
Elon Musk and his allies have reportedly taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and bypassed officials to send a mass resignation email to over 2.3 million federal employees.
The email, titled “Fork in the Road,” offers buyouts to those who voluntarily resign, mirroring a similar approach Musk used at Twitter.
Musk has placed close associates in leadership positions at OPM, raising concerns over his growing influence in Trump’s administration.
Federal employees remain skeptical about the buyout’s legitimacy.
My wife shared a thread from Reddit with me where a lot of federal workers who were feeling demotivated and like they may want to bail are now saying they will absolutely not leave, and will resist.
It’s one thing to proceed methodically and slowly and to strangle the workers off in ways that can’t be overcome. It’s entirely another to try to trick them into quitting and rug pull them.
In their shoes, I would be going full bureaucrat mode. To the extent legally possible, every HR, or HR-like email gets printed or stored somewhere that isn’t on a server that it can be remotely deleted from. Every meeting recorded. Every document preserved to the fullest extent that the law/FOIA/retention policies require. Heck, they should probably try to preemptively have a shortlist of employment lawyers, or even have a consult with one to make sure they’re being proactive for what may come.
I mean, if they like the job and want to fight for it/want to slow down these insidious changes.
The scuttlebutt is all the HR@opm emails are coming from an outside server someone just walked into OPM and plugged into the network lol.
It’s a total shit show
A total shit shower, one might say.
This is hilarious and incredibly stupid. I hope all the people impacted are of the disposition to delight in chaos, rather than be harmed by it.