The Trump administration paid nearly $7 billion as part of an effort to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy, according to a watchdog report released Tuesday.
The Government Accountability Office said the government spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave, including $6.7 billion spent on the Department of Government Efficiency’s initiative to incentivize federal workers to leave their jobs via deferred resignations, marking a 435% increase in paid administrative leave costs. The Trump administration defended the “one-time” deferred resignation expense, saying it has helped save taxpayers overall $40 billion annually.
Around 140,000 workers took the voluntary buyout offer from the government in DOGE’s “Fork in the Road” invitation, which launched shortly after President Donald Trump assumed office in January 2025 and was headed by X owner Elon Musk. The offer featured incentives to leave the bureaucracy by allowing federal staffers to resign and receive around eight months of pay and benefits without having to work. Those who opted into the program received pay through September 2025.
The Office of Personnel Management criticized GAO’s report, arguing it “fails to highlight the difference between a one-time expense ($9.5 billion) to reduce the size of the federal government by 270,000 employees and the $40 billion per year savings in taxpayer dollars that this reduction provides.”
“That 400% return on investment is a massive benefit to the taxpayer,” OPM director Scott Kupor told the Washington Examiner.
GAO said in its report that OPM does not know the actual costs of the paid administrative leave used for workforce reduction efforts, including the deferred resignation program. GAO’s report also emphasized that it identified limitations with the paid administrative leave data reported by federal agencies, which could overstate the actual amount used, writing that federal agencies reported 144% more paid administrative leave used in pay periods with a public holiday in 2023 through early 2025, even though holidays should not be reported as paid administrative leave.
Musk’s “Fork in the Road” program was challenged in court by major unions for federal employees, but a district judge in February 2025 dismissed the lawsuit against the Trump administration.
U.S. District Judge George O’Toole said the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the deferred resignation program because they were not directly impacted by it.
“Instead, they allege that the directive subjects them to upstream effects including a diversion of resources to answer members’ questions about the directive, a potential loss of membership, and possible reputational harm,” O’Toole wrote in his decision. “This is not sufficient.”
Roughly 140,000 federal workers took advantage of the deferred resignation program. The Trump administration ended up rehiring at least 25,000 fired bureaucrats. In response to lawsuits from a slew of Democratic-led states, Maryland and California judges ruled in March 2025 that the terminations of thousands of probationary workers were illegal.
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Many of those workers were rehired by the departments of Agriculture, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services, among other federal agencies.
“It’s been emotional whiplash — you’re fired, no, you’re not fired, you’re on administrative leave — so many mixed messages,” a reinstated employee at the Department of Transportation previously told the Washington Examiner. “This is taking a toll on my mental health, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking for opportunities elsewhere.”