A judge on Thursday suspended a scheme masterminded by billionaire Elon Musk to slash the size of the US government by encouraging federal workers to quit through a mass buyout.

The federal judge in Massachusetts ordered a temporary injunction on the plan's deadline -- midnight Thursday -- given by Musk for the country's more than two million government employees. The offer was to quit with eight months' pay or risk being fired in future culls.

The deadline is now extended to Monday, when US District Judge George O'Toole will hold a hearing on the merits of the case brought by labor unions, US media reported.

Musk, the world's richest person and President Donald Trump's biggest donor, is in charge of a free-ranging entity called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to gut the government.

According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, more than 40,000 staff have so far accepted the buyout deal -- a relatively small number.

Unions representing some 800,000 civil servants and Democratic members of Congress are resisting the scheme and have challenged the legality of threats to fire civil servants.

But the broader budget cutting........

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