The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is on the cusp of being shuttered, said Elon Musk, billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Tesla CEO has been wrestling for control of the agency in recent days.
Early yesterday, Musk held a live session on X Spaces, previously known as Twitter Spaces, and said that he spoke in detail about USAID with the president.
Photo: AFP
“He agreed we should shut it down,” Musk said.
“It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”
“We’re shutting it down,” he added.
His comments come after the administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a current and a former US official told the Associated Press on Sunday.
DOGE members eventually did gain access on Saturday to the ai agency’s classified information, which includes intelligence reports, the former official said.
Musk’s DOGE crew lacked high enough security clearance to access that information, so the two USAID security officials — John Voorhees and deputy Brian McGill — believed themselves legally obligated to deny access.
The current and former US officials had knowledge of the incident and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information.
Musk on Sunday responded to an X post about the news by saying: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”
Kate Miller, who serves on an advisory board for DOGE, said in a separate post that no classified material was accessed “without proper security clearances.”
It comes a day after DOGE carried out a similar operation at the US Department of the Treasury, gaining access to sensitive information, including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. The Washington Post reported that a senior Treasury official had resigned over Musk’s team accessing sensitive information.
Musk formed DOGE in cooperation with the Trump administration with the stated goal of finding ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations.
USAID, whose Web site vanished on Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government and many of its programs.
“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out,” Trump said to reporters about USAID on Sunday night.
The Trump administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have imposed an unprecedented freeze on foreign assistance that has shut down much of USAID’s humanitarian, development and security programs worldwide — compelling thousands of layoffs by aid organizations — and ordered furloughs and leaves that have gutted the agency’s leadership and staff in Washington.
The US is by far the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid, with USAID administering billions of US dollars in humanitarian, development and security assistance in more than 100 countries.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS