Washington, United States:
A judge suspended a scheme on Thursday that was devised by billionaire Elon Musk to lower the size of the US government by encouraging federal employees to stop via a massive buyout.
The federal court in Massachusetts ordered a temporary order on the deadline of the plan – Thursday midnight – given by Musk for the more than two million government employees of the country. The offer was to stop the wage or the risk of eight months to be dismissed in future companions.
The deadline will now be expanded to Monday, when the American district judge George O'Toole will hold a hearing about the merits of the case established by trade unions, the American media reported.
Musk, the world's richest person and the greatest donor of President Donald Trump, is in charge of a free -running entity called the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) that the government aims.
According to Minister of Witte Huis, Karoline Leavitt, more than 40,000 employees have so far accepted the buy -out deal – a relatively small number.
Trade unions that represent around 800,000 officials and democratic members of the congress oppose the regulation and have challenged the legality of threats to dismiss officials.
But the broader campaign for cutting the budget-waxed by anti-governmental worker Invective of Trump and his assistants are already seriously disrupted the enormous departments and agencies that have led everything for decades, from education to national intelligence.
USAID, the humanitarian aid agency of the government, is paralyzed, with foreign staff that was ordered at home and the programs of the organization that daily and often inaccurately wasted by the White House and the right-wing media.
A trade union officer confirmed reports that the worldwide workforce of the agency would be cut from more than 10,000 to slightly less than 300.
“Ultimately, we will have to stop the food distribution because we do not have bodies in the field to ensure that the food is actually distributed,” Randy Chester, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, told reporters.
Robin Thurston, from Democracy Vooruit, who has sued the Trump government due to the massive dismissals at USAID, hit the “illegal seizure of this agency by the Trump-VANCE administration, in a clear violation of basic constrictional principles about power separation.”
Trump has also repeatedly said that he wants to close the Ministry of Education. The construction to resign have been further expanded to the CIA.
An officer at the agency that manages the real estate of the government said that the real estate portfolio, except buildings of the Ministry of Defense, should be reduced by “at least 50 percent”.
Leavitt said reporters that federal employees should accept “the very generous offer” of a deferred dismissal.
She said that “competent” replacements would be found for those who “want to tear the American people.”
One of the controversies that sparkle around the Musk plan is how much access the Tycoon born in South Africa comes with secret government data, including the entire payment system of the treasury.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Bloomberg TV on Thursday that there was “a lot of wrong information” and that access to such data was only given to two Treasury employees who work with Musk.
Bessent said that those employees had “reading alone” access, which means that they could not change the data.
One of those two resigned, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, after it turned out that he had argued racism and Eugenica on social media.
'Chill' or Big 'Con'?
Questions are much for the buy -out, also about whether Trump has the legal right to submit the supply and whether the conditions are honored.
The plan was first announced in an e -mail that was sent over most of the huge federal government and entitled “Fork in the way” – the same formulation as the Note Musk who sent to employees on Twitter when he the social media platform In 2022, X.
Musk says that the paid departure is a chance to “take the vacation that you always wanted, or just watch and chill movies while you receive your full government wage and benefits.”
Trade unions warn that without the congress counting the use of federally budgeted money, the similarities can be worthless.
“Federal employees should not be misled by slick talking of non -chosen billionaires and their lakeien,” said Everett Kelley, president of the major US Federation of Government employees (AF).
An employee in the American personnel management office, where Musk brought his own staff in key positions, said that the plan was to encourage dismissal by 'panic'.
“We try to panic, so that people simply walk out of the door and leave the government in a crippled state, which is partly their objective,” the employee said AFP, speaking of anonymity.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by Our staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
