Correct.
> so the money to pay people to September is questionable if it exists at best
Incorrect.
The money is budgeted through September (end of federal FY). Things are currently only funded through March 15 (CRs and whatnot). The money is or will be there. Historically, even if there is a furlough, this money is backfilled and folks are paid. Note that there will probably be riots if lengthy furloughed folks don’t get back pay.
> So there's a very real chance at this deal offering something closer to ~1 month of pay before it suddenly gets dropped due to budget negotiations.
Correct.
The speculation is that:
1. The “resign” folks will be put on admin leave in March 1 (or earlier).
2. Budget impasse in mid-March. Furlough ensues.
3. Folks on admin leave just end up getting cut, or not paid, and/or not back paid due to peculiarities of admin leave.
> It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.
I think it’s above average, but not “incredibly generous”. People get $25k VSIP and VERA offers all the time. This may not seem like a lot, but many fed employees live in low COL areas and/or earn relatively low wages.
The best parts of the package, assuming they deliver, would be things like insurance (for non-retirees) and possibly TSP contributions and matching (if those are allowed).
If they want the numbers they say that they want, I think something near this level of package is necessary.
Non-American here with only a Mickey Mouse understanding of US mechanics of power.
I’m not an expert on this topic, so please take these comments with a grain of salt:
1. The simplest way a budget impasse could start is with internal feuding within the Republican Party. Some Republicans are very aggressive deficit hawks all the time. Some Republicans are only “deficit hawks” when a Democrat is president, but they spend freely when a Republican is president. Note that almost all of the largest budget deficits since 1990 have been under Republican administrations (Covid years under Trump and Biden were wonky and should probably be asterisked). So the pork-seeking Republicans and the deficit hawk Republicans can get into a stand off about what the budget should be.
2. Even if Congress is on the same page, Trump can choose not to sign the budget if he doesn’t get his pet issues addressed. This may seem like something that they should be able to work out beforehand, but his “priorities” change, sometimes daily, often based on who he happened to have spoken to last.
3. Some republicans want the government to break. The playbook here is to break the system in some way, point out that the system doesn’t work, and then make attempts to privatize that system or massively overhaul that system (likely with massive cuts of workers and largesse to contractors). It may seem odd that an elected official strives to make the government not work, but they are able to make that tack work for them at the polls. I think that this is a deep (and warped) issue that is hard for me to explain well.
The current House has an even smaller majority of 2 currently, so it's now infinitely more possible for a deadlock to happen.
2 are nearly guaranteed to break because we have a couple of republicans that always vote no on budget bills because they want massive cuts to everything.
That means either the bill ends up completely destroying federal funding, which risks losing centrist republicans or republicans in tight district races. Or the bill ends up trying to win over a few democrats in similarly contested districts, which risks losing a fair bit of republicans that reject any bills that have democrat votes.
That is what Trump is doing via DOGE so the burn-it-down camp seems pretty well served, more than anytime since the post-war demobilization anyway. The impasse, if it occurs, is more likely to be with those in Congress that don’t want to reduce the size of government.
DOGE acts different. It seems to me DOGE is about crashing the US economy and/or world economy to attempt wild and radical Silicon Valley theories about alternate societies. As such, its actions are inclined to ruin the fortunes and the business of the free marketeer camp, because those folks are functioning in the real world and have businesses, employees, and pay those employees in dollars.
So I don't think the 'burn-it-down' camp should favor DOGE. It is in no way their ally and is there to ruin them, in order to rebuild a society upon somebody else and leave 'em ruined. It's pretty plain to see DOGE's opinion of those people based on its attitude to H1B visas, for instance.
I see absolutely no evidence that the DOGE crowd wants to crash the economy and while they do have a utopian ideology so does the left.
Additionally, the DOGE crowd would say they’re trying to dismantle an unaccountable deep state conspiracy that threatens the American economy through an accelerating accumulation of government debt and regulations and has been trying to transform society globally for decades through political, social, economic, and military intervention all to serve the progressive elites.
I think both of your views are lacking in charity and perspective, although the DOGE view in so far as I’ve accurately described it has vastly more evidence backing it up.
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...
The quote is “markets will tumble” by which he clarifies that it will be a temporary market overreaction not “crash the economy” like it’s 1929. Those are qualitatively different things.
And not only that but a lot of the spending we engage is a mixture of minimally beneficial and/or outright corrupt. For instance at one point the Air Force was paying $10,000 for toilet seats. It's only after that received extensive publicity that they swapped over to simply 3D printing the seats, probably for a few bucks per seat. [1] There's about a 99.999% chance that the supplier for those $10,000 toilet seats had a rather low degree of personal separation from the person signing off on paying $10,000 for them. And now imagine how much you could save if you started wiping this nonsense out of the entire government.
Government spending, however, is accounted as part of GDP and other economic metrics. Each one of those toilet seats sent the GDP up, improved the economics of the company delivering them, and even created some jobs. So getting rid of this nonsense will obviously 'hurt' the economy in the short-run, but in turn you get a sustainable system, dramatically reduce spending, and create a more competitive economy. When it's even possible to sell toilet seats for $10,000 (easily replaceable by 3D printing), who cares about the private market? To say nothing of the fact that merit/competitiveness is obviously completely nonexistent or farcical for many government contracts.
[1] - https://www.military.com/defensetech/2018/07/11/air-force-no...
Without the dems they need almost every Republican to agree because their margin is only 5 votes. Historically this is difficult because their ranks now include several morons and extremists most notably the lady who actually believed Jews were responsible for starting wildfires with space based lasers.
If a handful of extremists don't ask for crazy nonsense they will still have every hand out for pork.
Then it goes to the Senate where it needs 60 votes including dems to pass anything. The first round of crazy if it passes anything might easily end up with something too stupid to pass the Senate without also termination of the fillibuster.
No. American political parties are more akin to continuously-branded coalitions than parties in the way they work in parliamentary systems. There is a minority of House Republicans who will vote down any budget bill because they reject the concept of federal government.
It would be Trump/Elon.
Someone told me the details of how they could not pay people. It’s administrivia. It will go unnoticed by most just like how the twitter folks not getting paid went unnoticed by most.
> And who in a Republican Congress will want to do that anyway?
They give zero fucks about fucking over feds or former Feds, as they are (allegedly) all lazy and useless.
The end result will be less money spent (trivial, but still) and a lower head count moving forward.
The Republican rhetoric on this largely doesn’t jibe with reality.
Yes, there are underemployed people in the federal government (as exist in any large org). Identifying that slack and cutting it is not something that can be done with laser shots from space. They can only be done from the ground, imho. The current way they are doing things is going to end with a lot of unpleasant unintended consequences.
The idea in Project 2025 is mostly to take this to a whole new level and apply it to the majority of the federal government.
Amazingly, so far, it hasn't hurt his approval numbers.
He started with (I think) the lowest approval numbers in modern records so to an extent it was probably priced in from the outset.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump...
For one, if they dip as low as they might given the expected economic hardship and the other cultural issues, you might start seeing rioting.
For another, I don't think it's a given this is Trump's final term. There already is a congressman trying to get in legislation to change the constitution to allow a third term. Even if that fails, the SCOTUS has already taken some egregious decisions in relation to Trump (full presidential immunity even for political assassinations) - what they might think they can get away with in the next four years is anyone's guess.
You've gotta understand the dynamics of social media information warfare. Loyalty trumps any other considerations like factuality or consistency, people will denounce tomorrow what they championed today if need be. I've seen some pro posters who post contradictory responses to Trump or Musk statements and then just delete whichever one gets less positive engagement.
Since the budget is only funded through March, the budget can be modified in March in order to extend the funding for it (all those "government shutdown avoidance negotiations"). At which point it won't matter whether it was budgeted or not.
Q: Am I expected to work at my government job during the deferred resignation period? A: No.
Q: Am I allowed to get a second job during the deferred resignation period? A: Absolutely! We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so. The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.
Q: Will I really get my full pay and benefits during the entire period through September 30, even if I get a second job? A: Yes. You will also continue to accrue annual leave and sick leave during the deferred resignation period until you separate. You will be paid a lump sum for accrued but unused annual leave upon separation.
Q: Can I take an extended vacation while on administrative leave? A: You are most welcome to stay at home and relax or to travel to your dream destination. Whatever you would like.
Is there an explanation for this apparent discrepancy?
From https://www.opm.gov/fork/
That is what resigners agree to. There is no guarantee of leave and it is up to their agency, not OPM. The FAQ has previously contained information contradicting the OPM Fork letter so it's not surprising the two pages disagree still.
It's not a buyout because it is not a lump sum severance. The payout for annual leave is given to all departing feds (resigning or retiring or RIF'd), it is not unique to this offer.
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-ad...
OPM also says that admin leave authority rests with the agency, not them.
Best source for information on this since the FAQ disagrees with the memo and the contents of the letter.
> Yes. The decision to grant administrative leave, and for how long, lies largely within the agency’s discretion.
That's the official OPM guidance on this, where they're saying that you may have to work and that it is up to the agency and not OPM.
These workers will resign, and won't get paid what they were told they'd get paid.
This is a man who is so cheap, so petty, he held up billions of dollars worth of economic relief during COVID just so he could have his signature on a bunch of stimulus checks.
I do not see your arguments
US has worker protections, even if US government goes bancrupt, it has to pay its obligations. And if government refuses to pay, no worker, even if employed, is getting anything!
Also your last line is just bizarre. The US government can very much selectively pay some parties but not others during a shutdown. That's kind of the definition of a shutdown....
Plus this administration is already brazenly breaking laws. You think they won't violate worker protection laws? Sure, maybe the courts sort it out in a year or two, small comfort to the people who were relying on that income to pay their rent in the meantime.
If the government's offer is illegal, those who accepted it and performed their part of the contract may not be able to force the government to perform its part.
>And you think that an offer accepted by sending an email with "Resign" in the subject line is subject to these protections?
I'm saying that if you say "accept this agreement by sending 'Resign' in the subject line" and someone does so, that's a legally valid offer and acceptance of a contract. Are standards higher for the federal government on this?
Here's a quick blurb from a law firm blog, notice the "acts at its peril" language which is not the standard for private citizens contracting together:
"Authority Issues. Contract awards and contract modifications may be made on behalf of the government only by duly appointed contracting officers acting within the limits of both available funding and their delegated authority. This public policy principle of limited authority is strongly supported in the law. To the extent that a company incurs costs based upon the directions or promises of government persons without this essential authority, the company does so at its financial risk. Moreover, the contractor has the responsibility to know the scope of authority of the government official with whom it deals, and acts at its peril."
https://www.crowell.com/en/insights/publications/the-risks-a...
Imagine Trump decided to offer a worker a trillion dollars. He writes a contract with the worker. It is irrelevant - the worker won't be paid because the executive branch is not allowed to spend money that hasn't been authorized by congress.
This is not the world being offered to them, so good luck doing anything but throwing money at lawyers.
everyone who thinks laws are just something you can invoke like magic should go sit down.
Even if the government exists, if Trump and Musk hold the payment system and you somehow get a judge to tell them to pay, they can just say no. Then what? Are you going to go Rambo? They hold a monopoly on violence and imprisonment.
This is why government's need to be set up with so many layers of indirect power and checks against direct power. this is why the military (should) have no role in governance.
This administration has been playing a lot of games with "budgeted" vs. "delayed" vs. "actively being worked on" (or not). So this isn't really that different than the abrupt cancellations or delays or re-org'ing of funded and legislatively mandated work.
The main difference is the uncertainty. IMO anyone would be incredibly foolish to accept a deal from a random email with such limited info on the exact terms of what happens in edge cases like you describe: shutdown, budget shenanigans, actual official RIF, etc.
EDIT: I'm not making any judgment about whether this particular thing is legal or not--just pointing out that it doesn't matter if it's legal if nobody in power intends to enforce the law.
For example:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C2-3...
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C2-3...
We already saw this play out in his last term. Directing how laws are enforced is a function of the executive branch. Nothing will be done.
Your energy is better spent identifying and articulating the values you hold that these actions are an affront to and shouting that out.
Politics doesn't always act on instant gratification.
1: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/30/decade-af...
>Politics doesn't always act on instant gratification.
The odds are slim to none since the public didn’t already act, 4 years after the previous act of treason by Trump, on top of the fact that he campaigned on pardoning his treasonous co-conspirators. In fact, he was rewarded with control of all 3 branches of government.
Things have already changed since the last election.
Careful not to assume the public is composed of rational actors all of whom have good information, when they're demonstrably not and haven't. Drawing people's attention to the ongoing issues can result in a huge amount of buyer's remorse among people who tried hard not to pay attention to the election in hopes things could be more 'normal' if they voted for what they thought would be the political party they knew.
What sort of assumptions have you been seeing?
If you're already allowing the question to be begged, there's really no need for specificity in the argument.
Because if there was no law being broken, that means that the building was not on fire. People tell me that shouting "fire!" is supposed to be bad when there is no fire. I don't think they would accept it as being "low-specificity."
https://time.com/7212753/trump-elon-musk-federal-laws-legal-...
Definitely in uncharted territory, but these are some possible laws that have been violated:
Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Privacy Act of 1974, the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), Internal Revenue Code’s Section 6103.
My guess is that at this point, talk is cheap, and actions speak louder than words.
So saying the same thing, just a different language.
And no: I have zero clue what the actions would look like. Maybe suing the govt?
It is completely valid to say something is illegal and unenforced.
Consider that non-enforcement doesn't suddenly make something legal. Enforcement can start at any time. (Will it? Who knows!)
It seems somewhat vacuous to say it when it applies to every second administrative act.
What is an administrative act in this context?
Illegal + unenforced can generate the same outcome as legal. Or someone can get arrested later when the enforcement begins.
There's a big difference.
There's no difference in the short term. Something being illegal, doesn't mean it will stop anytime soon in this political situation. Remaking the same obvious point is tedious and smacks of word games to try a to make a backdoor political statement. Yes, some act is odious and against a law. Not relevant to whether or not it will have the desired consequence, regardless of who is ever held accountable.
Yikes. Not trying to make any statement other than legality and enforcement are two distinct concepts. I think it's important to consider all 4 combinations.
What political statement do you think I'm trying to make? I can't even identify what side of the aisle the statement you think I'm trying to make would fall on.
Sometimes a comment is just a comment, not a secretly coded political message.
> That sounds illegal
> There is a simple dictionary difference between "legal" and "illegal.
This is kind of response is a repeat of exactly what I have described.
Again, "illegal" was used in context to mean something else. ie The damage will be remedied...which it cannot fully be, nor is it likely to be. Sampling conversations going forward from that, is where the thread has been allowed to be unraveled.
Elevating the original statement to be more than what it meant in context, is irrelevant. Posters are continually choosing new (eg dictionary!) interpretations of the sentiment at every turn.
Once the impact has been made, it's pretty sticky. Once these workers are gone and have been replaced, we're unlikely to unwind it. Once people are deported we're unlikely to un-deport them (I'm not even sure what that would mean).
Completely correct for individuals, though. Unwinding is simple there, you can just send them to jail at a later date.
If someone steals from you and there's been no conviction, was a crime committed or not? You're still out whatever was taken, but by your logic no theft has occurred until after someone has been convicted of committing the crime.
> But, as Chayes studied the graft of the Karzai government, she concluded that it was anything but benign. Many in the political élite were not merely stealing reconstruction money but expropriating farmland from other Afghans. Warlords could hoodwink U.S. special forces into dispatching their adversaries by feeding the Americans intelligence tips about supposed Taliban ties. Many of those who made money from the largesse of the international community enjoyed a sideline in the drug trade. Afghanistan is often described as a “failed state,” but, in light of the outright thievery on display, Chayes began to reassess the problem. This wasn’t a situation in which the Afghan government was earnestly trying, but failing, to serve its people. The government was actually succeeding, albeit at “another objective altogether” — the enrichment of its own members. Washington supported Hamid Karzai and his ministers and adjutants in the hope that they could establish a stable government, help pursue Al Qaeda, and keep the Taliban at bay. But the Karzai government wasn’t a government at all, Chayes concluded. It was “a vertically integrated criminal organization.”
Any observation you have for the oligopolists being able to commit mass murder or whatever won't apply to that people.
I encourage before doing that to find out if the thing is actually illegal, and to cite the law that it violates. This will be better than relying on sounds or smells.
I would be very nervous about personally benefitting from what might amount to a scheme to embezzle government funds.
Just because nobody in government today is interested in looking into whether or not this is legal doesn’t mean it will never come under scrutiny.
Well we'll be nice and just fire them, won't even ask for salary to be returned.
If they were terminated for following a lawful direction they would have pretty easy recourse.
Firstly: Its telling these people to work from their principle place of work, their home. Something thats been commonplace since covid.
Secondly, "Do Nothing" seems like a very legal thing for these people to be doing.
I suspect that theres not a court in the land that would convict a government employee for doing nothing.
Orchestrating a grand plan to waste government money by requesting multiple staff to stop working might be a grey area that the courts will decide on. But no employee would be expected to take it to court to test its validity instead of following a lawful direction.
It's not clear to me that this is even a "direction" never-mind a "lawful direction".
The way the staff member opts into this arrangement is to write "I resign" in an email. There is no "direction" telling them to do this. It is entirely voluntary behavior on the part of the federal employee.
The issue being discussed I believe was whether they have any legal protections if they don't get paid.
I don't think anyone was claiming they'd go to jail for resigning or anything like that.
Since the promise to pay staff who resigned doesn't necessarily appear to be legal it doesn't appear they necessarily have recourse if not paid given their resignation was voluntary.
Suppose I was told to go home, don't do work, and am told 'we will pay you for the next 6 months.'
At a private company, that is fine, and if for some reason they do not pay, I take them to court over a contract violation.
The federal government does not follow that. If I am told by my federal gov manager that 'here is the deal, go home, we will continue to pay you, and you won't have to work.
My manager is not allowed to do that. He does not have the authority, if the gov comes back later and says 'we have reevaluated this, your manager was not allowed to offer this, sorry but you resigned, and you will not be paid the remainder of this agreement.
I do not have any ability to contest.
Now maybe you trust trump/musk/gov to follow the agreement.
The issue becomes that the government is currently only funded till March.
It is going to be a very messy budget negotiation, and part of that will be cuts. Starting with the people who agree to the offer.
Now, congress could certainly be kind, and say 'we will honor this offer and provide funding for those who have been not working, and accept their resignation.'
Or they could go 'we, as congress who are in charge of funding, did not agree to this. We don't want to pay people to do an agreement we did not agree to, but we will still accept their resignation.'
Both are possible.
_---------------------
Now you as an individual have to ask yourself, what is likely:
1. You are continued to be paid thru March (personally I think likely)
2. Congress accepts the agreement, and funds the offer thru September:
This depends on how much Elon and trump go to bat for it. Maybe? I could see a larger scale buyout being part of the budget with different terms, and those that accepted this one getting rolled into it. But it will probably not be these specific terms.
I could also congress saying nope.
I also don't really think trump or Elon care outside getting people out. (See their previous refusals to pay)
This is why I think rolling this into a proper, different offer is likely, especially if they do not meet their targets for worker reduction.
I believe they will not make it a priority to pay people as according to the agreement.
Also remember the Republican congress has 2 votes in the house, and some of those are deficit hawks that have not seen spending they do not want to cut, they may be hard to convince that the should pay a salary for someone who has 'resigned'.
_--------------------
So what's the benefit?
If you accept this now, you open up substantial risk of only getting paid till March.
There will probably be another offer In March this one approved by Congress.
The offer will be different than this one, if it is worse, those that 'accept' this offer will rolled over to it, as the current offer has no legal basis.
If the new offer is better, those who accept this one will be forced to keep it (I assume, that congress would retroactively authorize this to save money.)
So unless you have something lined up, or already planned to leave in March. Your best bet is to not take the offer and wait until after budget negotiations are done.
In the case of taking early retirement, or accepting a pile of money for doing X / nothing, then you better be somewhat certain that it will last long enough.
Appealed to Supreme Court which is overrepresented by Trump cultists.
Trump's DOJ refuses to enact whatever verdict the court determines.
And the last four years, for which Biden pardoned his son, certainly nothing illegal in his doings I'm sure.
I am not taking a position on this particular policy being legal or not, it's too technical for me to know about and it's not something I want to research.
This kind of hyperbole isn’t helpful when the outgoing President hands out pardons like they were coupons, nor when the President can’t remember signing EOs and is known to have limited mental faculties for the past few years, all while being shielded by his inner circle. I mean the Constitution is pretty specific about a President not fit to do their job.
If you had said “the rule of law stayed dead on Jan 20th” I might disagree but it’s at least a defensible opinion.
They're paving a road to hell.
You realize that the check and balances never required that different parties head each branch of government?
I'm not sure you have even a basic understanding of how the US government is organized by the US constitution.
They do in effect, because the existence of political parties means there is no reason for members of the same party to check and balance each other across different branches, as opposed to collaborating across branches to consolidate their power.
Which is exactly what's happening.
The Democratic and Republican parties are not monolithic. They don't always agree and there are plenty of differences across individuals.
Hence, the Founding Fathers never required that a different party sit in the executive and legislative functions.
If a federal civil servant receives payroll, but does no work, for months on end, they have not taken a buyout, they have defrauded the federal government. What is the statute of limitations for that crime? Longer than 4 years. And Trump is term-limited.
That said, I agree with others that the more likely outcome in this specific case is that everyone who takes the “buyout” simply has their payments cut off rather quickly.
There's a lot of stuff that is bog standard in industry, but cannot be done in government service.
Lots.
It’s possibly illegal to pay someone for a government job that doesn’t exist anymore.
The job isn’t going away, the person is going away. Was the job needed? Look at any employer and ask that.
Pretending or hoping everything unorthodox or unprecedented is somehow illegal is already becoming tiresome to read about in comment sections and it hasn’t even been a month of this administration.
The fact that they have not is telling.
Why would it make sense for them to do this? Democrats would still howl in disapproval no matter what they did.
That's a feature. Going slow and giving Democrats a chance to howl is called "democracy". It's our system. Unilaterally moving fast and breaking things without even allowing a chance for debate or input from the minority party is a different system, called "autocracy".
Democrats marginalized themselves by catering to their most fringe elements.
As they say, elections have consequences.
It must have been deeply upsetting when the White House press secretary was asked at the time why he was skipping congress, and she said that Biden was not going to “delay action” by going the legislative route.
And I’m sure you’ll feel the same way when the next Democrat president does it too right?
> It must have been deeply upsetting when the White House press secretary
yes.
> And I’m sure you’ll feel the same way when the next Democrat president does it too right?
yes. You're trying to catch me in a "gotcha" but I don't support abuse of power no matter which side is abusing that power.
Like most people on HN, I don't comment about politics here often, but I made my displeasure known at the time in other social circle. I'm here now, as I think most people are, because this is some next-level shit. Comparisons to anything Biden did are strained.
I generally don't find it hard to maintain a consistent view of executive power no matter who is wielding it, because it always comes back to: what if it was wielded against you? This is the question everyone who is in support of this right now needs to be asking themselves.
The last time republicans wielded this much power we became a global power.
Both Roosevelts.
Both hated by their opposition.
History looks kindly on both.
Trump is not a Roosevelt, but in a way neither were they in their day.
I’m a centrist. I believe the greatest living president is Clinton and it’s not even close. I hope leftsts become pragmatic again and choose a Clintonesque nominee next time.
The policies that backfired so spectacularly that the working class voted in Trump for some degree of reversal?
Or were you just trying to bash trump because you’re angry?
That’s cool if you’re angry, but you’re missing the actual debate.
but also, legality is a thing of the past in the new way of things it feels.
The only reason they aren't is not that most people are violating precisely zero of the many thousands of laws they've never even heard of, it's strictly a lack of enforcement.
Which is where that attitude comes from: If the only reason anybody isn't in jail is that they haven't become a target and so nobody has bothered to look up which laws they're breaking, whether you broke a law or not is no longer relevant because the answer is always yes, and the thing that determines whether you go to jail is who your friends (or enemies) are.
If you want to get back to the rule of law, you need to get back to having only laws that ordinary people can understand, remember and follow.
Would you take it?
That's a setup for firing people on the spot for cause if I've ever seen one.
I wrote it elsewhere, but no. It may or may not be a paid vacation. Agencies get to decide themselves, not OPM, whether the employees are put on leave or continue to work. There is zero guarantee that anyone will get administrative leave under the offering.
We are getting into banana republic territory now with no rule of law.
Not sure about that one. Nor do I think the election would have gone the way it did if people generally figured their choice was to have Elon Musk's word be law, and everything else including the Constitution to be thrown away as old hat.
I really don't think people priced that into their decision, so buyer's remorse becomes a real factor. People may demand that rule of law not be thrown away.
We are way past the point of rule of law.
While the population as a whole may not be in favor of it, because of how the way the electoral college works, even knowing what they know now, he would win. Not to mention how the Senate is setup - each state has two senators regardless of size - and gerrymandering.
Hell at this point, I hope they reinstate the full state tax deduction, let states tax more, defund the federal government and let the red states rot in poverty and the Blue wealthier states work together
So future administrations are likely to retroactively approve payments if it becomes a political issue. Honestly taking the buyout without an act of congress backing it is likely the more risky here unless you where already planning to leave which is likely why most people took it.
You need to replace lower level employees as Trump is trying, and at 1% adoption mostly failing to do.
In this case, Trump/Musk don't want these workers back, so there's no political incentive or pressure to pay them. They can just not do so if it's "not funded by Congress" (usually there's fine print about this, at least there is in gov contracts, which are similar).
But it’s not just about current workers, new administrations have handed out money to people for past issues years or sometimes decades after the fact. Just as an example the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was about compensation for people exposed during the Cold War.
$50,000 to individuals residing or working "downwind" of the Nevada Test Site $75,000 for workers participating in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests $100,000 for uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_Exposure_Compensatio...
Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company, my guess is that neither the Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout people will ever see a dime.
For some reason, links to stories about the leins and SpaceX becoming notorious for not paying its bills are hard to come by, but it's in the printed newspapers regularly; as recently as yesterday. Here's and older link I could find: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-t...
EDIT: Specifically the claim that "SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company"
[0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-beats-500-million-se...
I know it's en-vogue to hate on Elon companies, and a lot of people would love to hear that the World's Richest Man is having financial issues, but in reality it's a bunch of starry-eyed newgrads trying to make the world better but taking on more than they can handle.
It would be surprising if spacex wasn't just awful at paying things on time, as there's no reason they should have actual financial difficulties.
To say that China is "very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing" is quite the stretch.
(Counter point is that New Glenn's one orbital launch is more impressive than all of the Starship launches combined, as SpaceX is willing to burn hardware during tests and they have many more Starship tests to go).
In spite of all of this they are still a very distant 2nd place behind SpaceX. If anything ITAR hurts more than helps SpaceX since it means their talent pool is strictly limited to strictly domestic talent. They seriously have something "special" going on.
Artemis definitely isn't going to be putting anybody on the Moon. It again relies on the SLS which is just an endless money pit. But I do think it'll be interesting to see if SpaceX gets there before China. But I think the big picture is on Mars. I expect whoever gets their first will probably foretell who dominates space for the next century. Because once you can put men on Mars, the entire Solar System starts to viably become your playground.
E.g. intern that knows nothing
From the perspective of a crusty old man anyway.
The Manhattan Project was made possible by similarly young grad students.
You can be as crusty as you like, but the reality is that young smart people can be extraordinarily effective under the right conditions.
As a customer of SpaceX, though, I have to say their customer service is barebones. It is almost a relief when I work with another launch provider since they provide a much better service and support. I always compare it to a low cost airline in my head, like flying Spirit instead of Emirates kind of thing.
The propaganda machine must be real good.
Reuters, May 2024: "Quick to Build, Slow to Pay" https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-qui...
SAEN, Feb, 2025: "Contractors say they're owed more than $5.5 million" https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/spacex-unpaid-c...
There's also a "somewhat" unique one from MySanAntonio that goes over the general range of lawsuits that are being filed against Musk in Texas over a range of issues. It happens to include the Reuters article lawsuits and liens as one of the many listed.
MySanAntonio, Sept, 2024: "lawsuits in Texas" https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/elon-musk-t...
It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying.
I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company.
Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year).
Musk doesn't pay "because he can get away with it" isn't better or worse than "because there's a money shortage"; and in any case, the federal government being delinquent is a very different kind of catastrophe, as is it making promises it refuses to keep.
Elmo being a shitty business partner isn’t the same as the US.
There's a possibility of contagion from Musk to the US government, but I very much agree they're different — and it's much worse if that contagion goes from potential to actual.
2.5mm in liens is just how much they have proveably shorted construction workers in Texas. It doesn't count other vendors doing work that isn't elegible for a lien, or how many workers got shorted, but it just wasn't enough to worry about.
If you were one of the 70+ businesses that held a lien against them, you would think differently.
> It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying.
Having the cash to be paid out, and having the systems in place to pay your bills are two different things.
> I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company.
Violating the terms of your contract isn't cheap lending. It is fraud. The fact that they are getting away with it isn't a defense.
> Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year).
Consistently and intentionally violating the terms of payment is, as noted above, fraud. They are getting away with, and they might continue to get away with it, but mercenary businesses getting away with crime is a bad thing.
Aside: I think most moral people struggle to even recognise amoral decision making. I also suspect that learning to be more sociopathic can be profitable. I don't much admire most doyens of business. Trying to fight amoral business people seems like a personally losing game because you eventually internalise their tricks.
Everything you said says nothing of how they pay their vendors. $2.5mm is not exactly breaking news for construction projects. Most large projects have some percentage of total project value in liens.
I know we all want to get upset but its too hard to say either way, the dollar amount is far too small, it maybe involve a large portion of contractors and based on the cost of the development does not seem to be a rampant issue.
I hate to be this guy but please provide a source for this. I’ve been involved in the construction industry for quite a while, almost exclusively on large and mega projects, and “most” of my jobs have not had any percentage of their total project value in liens.
One company that refused to pay for work my (then) company performed is SpaceX. Our work did not permit filing a lien.
Now SpaceX could totally be stretching their NWC as far as it goes and always paying late on purpose. Really impossible to tell in this style of shock reporting.
I would be surprised in your experience that you have never had cases of a GC not paying on his end and those folks throwing a <$100k lien on the project. Or a dispute between the GC and payer.
——
SpaceX donated $265M to Trump last year:
https://www.opensecrets.org/2024-presidential-race/donald-tr...
It sounds like that’s comparable to their total profit for the year, and it would cover the liens 100 fold.
I wonder how much of that cash was taxpayer money that got laundered and used for Trump’s personal finances.
The page I linked is confusing. (Why attribute it to SpaceX, but not X or Tesla?)
> mostly on the back of [its] delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy
continues to hold true.
They should have used that money to buy GOG and go into digital distribution competing with Valve & Epic, or something like that.
But then again, so many stable companies get pushed by their investors to make big ambitious bets, then go belly-up. I kinda got respect for them just focusing on a good brick-and-mortor game buying experience.
JP Morgan’s analyst position on the company really says it all: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jpmorgan-deeply-skeptical-wal...
The scary thing is that the lie is so big, everyone is exposed to it — TSLA is 2% of VTI’s holdings.
Robotaxi is also a pretty interesting bet. I'm skeptical that it'll pan out, or at least that it will ever reach the same level of safety as Waymo without lidar, but on the other hand AI has obviously significantly advanced and been significantly democratized compared to when Tesla first launched Autopilot over a decade ago. More significantly, I see the decentralized rollout strategy as a potentially viable path to beat Waymo to the punch of a full-scale deployment. Waymo might still get there first based on its headstart and massive warchest, but Tesla's strategy is essentially crowdfunding it while using the market to optimize geographic distribution. The downside is that allowing the Robotaxi to be used in arbitrary/novel locations might be significantly less safe and/or more computationally expensive than Waymo's approach, so it's a more uncertain bet than Waymo.
It just seems that self driving is staying a "hard problem" (harder than expected!)
Both would be insanely economically valuable.
I do fear humanoid robots will face intense competition from Chinese mass manufacturing, undercutting them with cost while mostly matching features.
Elon dangles all sorts of bullshit to get you thinking about nerd nonsense. “OMG, a Tesla robot will do my laundry on Mars with my robot rocket ship!”
It’s all bullshit. They’ve been dangling the imminent $25k car for a decade. The Tesla roadster that people put huge deposits on is nowhere to be found.
People are figuring it out. My previous comment would have created a 100+ comment thread in HN 5 years ago.
But it isn't what I'd call insane. Google's gross margin is 58%, profit is $349B.
Because the benchmark set was "insane". I agree no car company gets insane profitability levels. Tesla was never insanely profitable by most metrics.
1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-...
Case: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68307087/agrawal-v-musk...
The only substantive order in the case to date appears to be one denying Elon Musk et al.'s motion to dismiss one of the claims: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.42...
> When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
- Article I, Section 2
For the Senate, the governor of the state may (per their legislative body's approval) make a temporary appointment and will also hold a special election:
> When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.
- Amendment XVII
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/amendments-11-27#toc-...
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-03-31-mn-40541-...
Reminds me of this: https://www.upworthy.com/hypernormalization-explained.
House Rule XXI (blocking unauthorized spending) gets waived a majority of the time. 50% of expired programs haven't been reviewed in 10+ years. 2023 alone saw $236B in improper payments.
So IMO while the buyout could get axed the pattern suggests they'll likely kick the can with another CR. Perhaps this administration will try to force a different tack, I suppose we'll see.
This is where I go ”I know nothing about US law but if I wouldn’t win this argument in any court even without representation then it must be fundamentally broken”
The argument would be ”those who entered the agreement didn’t have the authority to do so” but obviously that can’t hold water.
According to that hypothesis, it won't require more funding.
Maybe there are some legal differences in offering what would otherwise be wages as a lump-sum payment, but the budget for those wages already exists (else they could not be employed).
The only thing would require more budget is hiring backfills (while paying out the leave).
Supposedly, they can get the same work done with fewer people.
It’s arguably an unconscionable contract, it’s so wickedly one-sided.
It would be an incredibly generous and nice buyout package, but obviously if it gets torn up after a month it's not that great of a deal.