WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A US judge on Wednesday lifted his freeze on a buyout plan offered to federal workers, handing President Donald Trump a victory in his efforts to drastically slash the government workforce.

US District Judge George O’Toole, who had temporarily paused the plan last week, lifted his restraining order on the mass buyout offer.

Labor unions representing federal employees had filed suit to block the scheme masterminded by billionaire Elon Musk to slash the size of the US government by encouraging federal workers to quit.

In an email titled “Fork in the Road,” the more than two million US government employees were given an offer to leave with eight months’ pay or risk being fired in future culls.

The White House says more than 65,000 federal employees have signed on to the buyout offer from the Office of Personnel Management.

O’Toole, an appointee of president Bill Clinton, said the unions lacked the standing to bring the suit and his court did not have jurisdiction over the matter.

“The unions do not have the required direct stake in the Fork Directive, but are challenging a policy that affects others, specifically executive branch employees,” he said.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal workers and was among the unions that brought the suit, called the ruling “a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants.”

“But it’s not the end of that fight,” AFGE national president Everett Kelley said in a statement. “Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program.

“We continue to maintain it is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk,” Kelley said.