Musk’s Brash Bid To Slash Workforce Hits The Intel Community 

Staff for at least seven U.S. intelligence agencies have received deferred resignation offers from the Trump administration — a sign that the Elon Musk-backed push to slash the federal workforce is reaching national security personnel the administration previously indicated would be insulated from it.

Since last Tuesday, full-time civilian workers at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have received similar versions of the resignation offer that first went to an estimated 2 million employees late last month, according to nine people granted anonymity to share details on sensitive personnel matters. 

The offers to workers at the CIA were previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, those to the ODNI by The Washington Post, and those to NSA employees were previously reported by The Record.

The Office of Personnel Management has said that those in the military or working in immigration and national security are exempt from its “Fork in the Road” offer, which promises full-time civilian federal workers they can receive pay through September if they agree to resign by Feb. 6.

So when intelligence community staffers received that email or similar offers in the following days, they weren’t sure what to think. The missive has caused significant confusion at the NSA and another Defense Department intelligence agency, according to two former senior intelligence officials in contact with former colleagues there. Agencies are not clear whether recipients are actually eligible to accept the offer laid out in the email ahead of an imminent Feb. 6 deadline.

Since the OPM first blasted its offer out on Jan. 28, other departments and agencies have followed up with their own communications or versions of it. That has led employees at one Pentagon intelligence agency to jump at the opportunity — even though some of them work in critical national security roles, and it’s unclear if they are eligible.

“This has the potential to create enormous chaos at the personal level, but also at the operational level,” said the first of the two former officials, who, like the other, was granted anonymity for fear of reprisal. “You just don't know who's going to come to work.”

Some personnel across the Pentagon received the original offer directly from OPM on Jan. 28, according to an email viewed by POLITICO. The CIA received an email detailing its deferred resignation package on Tuesday. ODNI personnel received theirs last week, according to two people, and employees in at least one other Pentagon intelligence agency received a parallel resignation offer earlier this week, according to a third.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the NGA said that its employees who elect to receive the resignation offer may later be notified they are ineligible “if it is assessed that there are potential national security implications for that vacancy.” The spokesperson said the secretary of Defense would make that determination.

Spokespeople at the NSA and NRO did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for DIA said it has “received and is implementing OPM and DOD guidance regarding the deferred resignation program.” Another for the FBI said the law enforcement agency “continues to provide all guidance received from OPM and DOJ to its employees."

The Department of Defense referred POLITICO to the Office of Personnel Management. An ODNI spokesperson confirmed that the deferred resignation offer had been made to all employees at the agency.

A congressional staffer, who was granted anonymity to discuss the resignation offers, said offers were sent out to people at DOD last week.

The Office of Personnel Management, the National Security Council and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The idea of using an aggressive deferred resignation package to overhaul the federal workforce is widely understood as being inspired by Elon Musk. The subject line of the initial offers from OPM — “Fork in the Road” — was one Musk used in an email when he began downsizing Twitter’s workforce.

The Trump administration has argued the proposals are a critical tool to slash a bloated federal workforce and push out disloyal employees who may hinder President Donald Trump’s agenda. White House officials have estimated between 5 to 10 percent of employees will take the offer and could save the federal government roughly $100 billion annually.

Democrats and some former U.S. intelligence officials fear it will drive out talented personnel while giving the Trump administration more space to move loyalists into powerful intelligence roles.

“If the administration actually wanted to streamline our intelligence community and increase focus on areas like China and drug trafficking, Trump and Musk would invest in the talented, experienced workforce already serving at the CIA,” Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

“Instead, they offered a blanket ‘buyout’ that will serve only to hollow out the very agencies we call on to protect our national security,” he said.