Elon Musk is only one week into his role in President Donald Trump’s new administration, but the US federal government is already rolling out the Twitter playbook to manage its spending and personnel. Just like Musk did when he took over the social media platform, Trump’s team is attempting to drastically reduce the number of government staffers and ensure those who remain are loyal to the president’s agenda.
On Tuesday, federal employees received an email that mirrors the “Fork in the Road” missive sent to Twitter (now X) staff shortly after Musk bought the company in 2022. The email asks federal workers to resign by February 6 if they do not wish to return to the office five days a week and commit to a culture of excellence. Those who choose to resign will continue to get pay and benefits until September, according to the memo.
“The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work,” reads the email, which was later published on the US Office of Personnel Management website. “Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward.”
The news comes as Musk’s minions take over the US Office of Personnel Management, which acts as a human resources department for the federal workforce. Elon Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED. The Office of Personnel Management also did not respond to a request for comment.
Musk and his advisors, including Trump’s newly appointed AI and crypto czar David Sacks, used a remarkably similar strategy at Twitter. About a week after the acquisition was complete, Musk laid off half the workforce. Sacks helped advise him on which teams and people would be cut.
About two weeks later, remaining employees received an email with the subject line “A Fork in the Road.” Musk said that they would need to be “extremely hardcore” in order to realize his vision for Twitter 2.0. This meant “working long hours at high intensity.” He noted that “only exceptional performance” would receive “a passing grade.” Employees were asked to opt into this vision via a web form. Anyone who failed to do so by the following day would receive three months severance, Musk said. Thousands of Twitter employees would later sue, arguing that they were not paid their full severance. Musk ultimately was able to get the suit dismissed.
“We are all shaking our heads in disbelief at how familiar this all feels,” says Yao Yue, a former principal engineer at Twitter. “Except, the federal government and its employees have specific laws in terms of spending, hiring, and firing.”
In this case, federal employees are being asked to send an email with the word “Resign” in the subject line in the next 10 days. “Purging the federal government of dedicated career civil servants will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government,” Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, said in a statement. “This offer should not be viewed as voluntary. Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to.”
In the wake of Musk’s ultimatum at Twitter, hundreds of employees resigned—many more than Musk had expected, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. The move caused widespread chaos inside the company as Musk’s lieutenants scrambled to figure out who simply hadn’t filled out the form yet and who was actually leaving the company. In some cases, Twitter employees who had quit were later called and asked to reconsider staying.
One former Twitter employee noted that the OPM letter appears slightly more buttoned up than the version they received years ago. “Clearly this was more thought out and went through lawyers unlike what they did with Twitter employees,” says a former engineering manager who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they do not want to incur Musk’s wrath. “I’m sickened to even be part of the connection honestly.”
The latest email from the Office of Personnel Management stresses that federal employees must return to the office five days a week, though some may be asked to move to new locations due to “meaningful consolidation and divestitures” of existing buildings. Musk has spoken repeatedly about his distaste for working from home—a practice he has called “morally wrong.” At Twitter, he told workers during an all hands meeting shortly after buying the company that if they could physically make it to an office and chose not to show up, their “resignation” would be accepted. Under former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, employees had been told they could work remotely forever.
On Monday, the US Office of Management and Budget (which encompasses Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE) sent a memo abruptly freezing all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government. “Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,” the memo read, according to NBC News.
This approach to spending—where a budget starts at zero, and employees have to justify every expense—is called “zero based budgeting,” and it too is a popular Musk tactic.
On Tuesday, a subreddit for federal employees was inundated with comments from people discussing the email. “Don’t trust this email, there is no guarantee they will pay you, and they most likely won’t!” wrote one user. “Look at what happened to Twitter employees.”