Scores of now-former US federal government employees are finding out the hard way that Elon Musk leaves a whole lot to be desired in the integrity department as they find themselves hauling to their nearest unemployment line, desperate and dejected, even after attempting to take the tech billionaire and Trump jockey up on his “deferred resignation” offer, according to new reporting from The Bulwark.
Last month, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency sent out what has now become the infamous “Fork in the Road” email to every federal worker in the US, in which he essentially gave the government employees two options — agree to resign now and still receive “all pay and benefits” through the end of September, or stay in their positions and take a gamble as to whether or not they would be fired in the coming days.
This infamous email offer was one of the first legs of Musk’s plan to cut trillions of dollars from the federal budget.
However, it seems that at least some of the workers who attempted to take Musk up on his “deferred resignation” offer still ended up left out in the cold in the end.
Scott Curtis, a retired Navy captain, who served as a regional chief of staff at FEMA, told the publication that he received Musk’s infamous email and, at first, was quite skeptical of the offer. However, he figured that his chances of landing a new job were pretty good, especially if he could depend on his government salary and benefits for a few months while he conducted his job search.
In the end, it didn’t turn out that way for Curtis.
Instead of receiving instructions for his next steps, as he expected after taking Elon’s offer, Scott Curtis was informed just a few weeks later that he was being fired from his government job.
“Despite having served 32 years in the Navy, Curtis had only recently joined FEMA—starting in July 2024—meaning he was still in a ‘probationary’ employment phase, during which he was easier to fire,” Bulwark reports.
However, Curtis says no caveat about “probationary” periods was included or presented to him when he took the “deferred resignation” deal.
“In fact, the guidance in that email was quite broad when it came to eligibility, stating that deferred resignation would be ‘available to all full-time federal employees except for military personnel of the armed forces, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and those in any other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency,'” the report reads.
Cutis told the publication, “You spend as much time in the military as I did . . . taking care of your people is just fundamental to what you do. And this seemed to be the opposite of that. It was just, you know, ‘Hey, we’re going to just lock you out of the building when you come in to get your coffee mug and, you know, just kick you to the curb.'”
The publication asked the White House to respond to allegations of a “bait-and-switch” like what Curtis experienced. A Trump White House spokesperson released a statement in response: “President Trump and his administration are delivering on the American people’s mandate to eliminate wasteful spending and make federal agencies more efficient, which includes removing probationary employees who are not mission critical.”
Following his less-than-successful experience, Scott Curtis said, “I don’t know who in their right mind would apply for a federal job right now. And the federal government does real work. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff that I think the nation is going to find that isn’t happening.”
Read the full report from The Bulwark here.
Featured image via The Resistance Report Gallery