A judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s buyout offer to federal civilian employees from taking effect Thursday, hours before the deadline the administration set for more than 2 million employees to decide whether to take resignation packages with pay through September.

The buyouts were being pushed by both President Trump and Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk as a way to drastically reduce the number of employees on the federal payroll.

About 60,000 U.S. federal employees have accepted a buyout offer from President Donald Trump's administration, a source told Reuters on Thursday, ahead of a deadline that has been pushed back to at least Monday.