"Fork in the Road" is the title and subject line of a memo sent on January 28, 2025 by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to all employees of the U.S. federal civil service. The memo, the first ever mass message to all roughly two million federal employees, offered a deferred resignation program for those unwilling to work under the second 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.
During the 2024 United States presidential election, then-candidate Donald Trump proposed downsizing the federal civil service and publicly considered a potential role for businessman Elon Musk.[1] After the election, Trump and Musk announced the Department of Government Efficiency, intended to eliminate wasteful spending.[2] Several high-profile members of what Politico and Vox call the "tech right", including Musk and Marc Andreessen, have expressed desires to restructure the federal civil service to better support Trump's agenda.[3][2]
On the first day of Trump's administration, he issued the presidential memorandum "Return to In-Person Work", directing agencies to cancel all remote work agreements.[4][5] Similarly, the administration directed OPM to categorize some employees under the controversial Policy/Career appointment authority, removing competitive service job protections for positions considered "policy-related".[6]
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.[7][1] On January 25, OPM began sending test emails to all civil servants. As communications in the government are generally kept within each agency, the emails were often flagged as spam and confused employees.[8]
Authorship
Several publications noted the similarities to an offer given to Twitter employees after its acquisition by Elon Musk, including an identical title.[9][3][10][11] A January 28 Wired article uncovered that several high-ranking OPM staff were former employees of Musk, including a recent high school graduate,[12] which Fortune connected to the memo's similarities to that of Twitter.[13]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.[14]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.[15]
Offer
On January 28, 2025, an email entitled "Fork in the Road" was sent to the roughly two million civilian employees of the US government.[16] Besides the immediately preceding test emails, it was the first-ever mass email to all two million federal civilian employees.[8] According to the memo, employees who accept the deferred resignation would be placed on administrative leave and paid through September 30, 2025, but have no work duties.[17][18] On January 31, OPM approved Voluntary Early Retirement Authority for all agencies.[19] On February 3, a new deferred resignation agreement form was sent that provided more details and legal assurances.[20]
The government only has funding through March 15, 2025, as it is currently funded by a continuing resolution, despite the offer promising salary payments through September 30.[14] Furthermore if the Trump administration is planning to spend money via the deferred retirement payments before the appropriation of funds is authorized it could violate the Antideficiency Act. The deferred resignation offer allegedly violates the Administrative Procedure Act, per a lawsuit filed by many unions.[24]
Statistics
More than three-quarters of employees surveyed by Federal 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] It was reported on February 6, that while the White House reportedly expects about 10% of the federal civilian work force to accept the deal only about 40,000 federal workers have accepted the deal or about 2% of the workforce.[24]
Response
Protesters outside the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building on February3
Labor unions representing federal civil servants opposed the memo and advised their members not to take the offer. The American Federation of Government Employees stated that the resignation scheme should be viewed as coerced rather than voluntary as it immediately followed the annulment of remote work and other workplace benefits.[10] The National Treasury Employees Union likewise indicated that the offer was intended to "scare" employees into accepting, and strongly urged its members to ignore it.[26] The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers found the offer to be too vague to advise members to accept.[27]
Others questioned the legality of the offer.[14]Patty Murray, vice chair of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations, warned that Congress had not given statutory authority or allocated appropriations for the offer.[27] Senator Tim 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.[18][1]
On February 3, several federal employees protested outside the headquarters of OPM.[28]
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