- A rumor spread in the fall of 2026 that the CIA offered eight months’ pay and benefits to employees who agree to quit. The rumor is not new. It first started to spread early in 2025, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump took office for the second time.
- The rumor stems from a Feb. 4, 2025, Wall Street Journal report that cited “officials” as saying the scheme was a “bid to bring the agency in line with President Trump’s priorities,” that is, downsizing the government. The report also said the CIA was “freezing the hiring for job seekers already given a conditional offer.”
- Since then, further reporting has indicated that in May 2025, CIA Director John Ratcliff announced he intended to cut 1,200 jobs. More recently, in August 2026, an article from the Washington Post said many CIA employees who took the buyouts were still awaiting their retirement due to the sheer number of departures from the agency. The CIA does not release exact staffing numbers.
- Snopes has not rated the claim because we have not yet independently verified the reporting. We have reached out to the CIA asking for information about the buyout scheme and its current status, and we will update this story if we learn more.
In October 2026, social media posts multiplied claiming the CIA offered eight months’ pay and benefits to employees who agree to quit.
Several posts on Facebook and X included a video of Fox News presenter Jesse Watters saying, “The Wall Street Journal has reported the CIA has reportedly just offered a buyout to its entire workforce” (archived):
The claim is not new. It has been circulating since at least February 2025.
The rumor stems from a Feb. 4, 2025, article from the Wall Street Journal that cited “officials” as saying the scheme was a “bid to bring the agency in line with President Trump’s priorities” — namely, downsizing the government. The story also said the CIA was “freezing the hiring of job seekers already given a conditional offer.”
The report also quoted an unnamed CIA spokesperson as saying “the move was part of an effort to ‘infuse the agency with renewed energy.'”
We could not corroborate the report independently, so we left it unrated.
We reached out to the CIA for more details on staffing plans and we will update this story should we receive a response.
Since the publication of the Wall Street Journal article, more reporting has appeared on the staffing situation at the CIA. Layoffs started as soon as March 2025, according to The Associated Press.
Further, in May 2025, the Washington Post reported that the agency’s then-new Director John Ratcliff had announced he wanted to slash 1,200 at the organization, which works to gather foreign intelligence.
“The CIA does not publicly disclose the size of its workforce, but it is believed to be about 22,000,” the report read. “It is unclear which parts of the spy agency would be most affected.”
Then, in August 2026, another story from the Washington Post said the intelligence agency was struggling to keep up with demands for retirements from former employees due to the sheer number of departures.
The agency “gave retirees two toll-free numbers to call if more than six months had passed since they’d received their final paycheck,” the article read. “One former official said she recently spoke to a colleague who retired in March and had just received their first, partial retirement check.”
For further reading, Snopes has covered several claims about the CIA over the years, including the rumor that late feminist Gloria Steinem had worked for the agency.
