The White House rejected a report that a mere 20,000 federal workers had taken the early exit option put forth as part of Elon Musk‘s cost-cutting plan to drastically reduce the size of the federal government.

Instead, a source familiar with the figures suggested the initial paring back of 5-10% of the workforce could be achieved before the 11:59 p.m. deadline Thursday, arguing the pace was rapidly picking up.

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As the clock ticks, some of the 2.3 million federal workers describe uncertainty in Trump’s new Washington where he’s turned over access to federal financial systems to Musk, effectively shuttered at least one agency in USAID, and sent Department of Government Efficiency workers to other offices to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.

“I’m incredibly concerned about what’s happening with federal employees,” Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) told the Washington Examiner. “First of all, it’s blatantly illegal. But second of all, they provide very important functions and tasks for the American people, like getting Social Security checks out, like making sure Head Start gets funded, and we need the American people need those things to continue.”

The confusion around Musk’s efforts to trim federal spending has led to an air of fear for federal workers, many of whom are still debating the resignation offer but worry that the lack of legality could leave them without a job or funding in the future.

Workers who decide to follow the advice of Democrats and keep their government jobs will be subjected to Trump’s executive order demanding employees return to the office five days a week, upending five years of COVID-era, family-friendly telework options and adding rising anxiety to the workforce.

Yet drastic actions could be implemented if not enough employees take the voluntary resignation offer.

Erv Koehler, assistant commissioner of general supplies and services at the General Services Administration, reportedly warned the workforce in a memo that layoffs, or “Reductions in Force,” are “likely” if the Trump administration’s target goal isn’t reached.

Koehler did not respond to a Washington Examiner request for comment.

The resignation offer, first announced in a Jan. 28 “Fork in the Road,” mass email, has met fierce pushback from Democrats and labor unions.

The American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the National Association of Government Employees sued the Office of Personnel Management and Charles Ezell, the acting director of OPM, on Tuesday to halt the program.

“If these employees leave or are forced out en masse, the country will suffer a dangerous one-two punch,” the unions claimed in the lawsuit. “First, the government will lose expertise in the complex fields and programs that Congress has, by statute, directed the Executive to faithfully implement. And second, when vacant positions become politicized, as this Administration seeks to do, partisanship is elevated over ability and truth, to the detriment of agency missions and the American people.”

One day after their lawsuit, the unions asked a federal court to pause and extend the buyout before the Feb. 6 deadline and requested the court hold a hearing no later than Thursday.

Similarly, Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee wrote to Trump demanding the buyout be halted.

“We strongly oppose and condemn your efforts to purge our nation’s nonpartisan civil
service by coercing federal employees into mass resignations,” Democrats wrote.

Twelve Democratic attorneys general including Letitia James of New York issued a warning to federal workers against taking the offer.

“President Trump’s so-called buyout offers are nothing more than the latest attack on federal workers and the services they provide,” James said in a statement. “These supposed offers are not guaranteed. Federal employees should be cautious and follow the guidance of their unions to protect their rights.”

However, OPM rejected the criticism from the unions and Democrats in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

“Union leaders and politicians telling federal workers to reject this offer are doing them a serious disservice. This is a rare, generous opportunity—one that was thoroughly vetted and intentionally designed to support employees through restructuring,” said McLaurine Pinover, spokesperson for OPM. “Instead of spreading misinformation and using workers as political pawns, they should be making sure federal employees have the facts and freedom to make the best decision for themselves and their families.”

Federal workers were also sent a second email about the program offering a sample resignation contract this week. A source familiar claimed the contract is legally binding for employers who accept the offer. They would also be put on administration leave by March 1.

Ezell, the acting director of OPM, also clarified in a memo sent out on Tuesday that the offer was legally binding but “were the government to backtrack on its commitments, an employee would be entitled to request a rescission of his or her resignation.”

In response to House Democrats who claimed it violates the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prevents Congress from spending more funds than has been appropriated, he also claimed the resignation program did not require congressional approval.

But if the government were to partially or completely shut down after March 14, “payments to all affected employees (regardless of whether they accepted the deferred resignation offer) would be temporarily paused” the memo states. They would later receive retroactive pay once the government is up and running.

The breakneck speed to reduce the government workforce was previously signaled by Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee to head the White House budget office, in past comments.

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.”