The aid agency has been subject to remarkable attacks by Musk, backed by Trump, as his team of cost-cutters runs the ruler through government departments. Musk called it a “criminal organisation” and likened it to an apple full of worms.
“It’s beyond repair … We’re shutting it down,” Musk said, claiming Trump agreed with that course of action. Trump said the agency was full of “radical left lunatics” and once they were purged, further action would be determined.
On Monday (Tuesday AEDT), the State Department confirmed Trump had appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting administrator of USAID, and a review into its activities was underway “with an eye towards potential reorganisation”.
Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, speaks outside the US Agency for International Development (USAID) headquarters in Washington, DC.Credit: Bloomberg
But the Musk-led attack on USAID spurred Democrats into action, along with reports that Musk’s team had gained access to the Treasury’s massive payments system.
On the Senate floor, minority leader Chuck Schumer said Musk now had “unprecedented access to the most sensitive payment data in the entire federal government”, including social security, income tax refund data, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits.
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“We don’t know what DOGE intends to do with this information,” he said, of Musk whose relationships with anti-Westerns world leaders has raised security concerns.
“If you want to know how an unelected, shadow government operates, look no further than DOGE… We must halt this unlawful and dangerous power grab.”
The DOGE is not an actual government department, but a team established within the Executive Office of the President. Musk is now considered a “special government employee”, the White House said on Monday – a designation that allows the world’s richest man to work for the federal government but potentially avoid disclosure rules about conflicts of interest and finances that apply to regular government positions.
Musk remains chief executive of electric vehicle firm Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX. He is the world’s richest man.
Trump said Musk had only been given access to data related to “letting people go if they’re no good … and it’s only if we agree with him”.
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” he said. “We’ll give him the approval where appropriate; where not appropriate, we won’t. If there’s a conflict we won’t let him get near it.”
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White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt listed four examples of USAID waste, including $US1.5 million she said it had spent on advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices in Serbia, $70,000 on a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia and $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.
“I don’t know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going towards this crap,” she said. This masthead has not independently verified the claims.
Republicans have long raised concerns about wasteful spending on foreign aid, as well as other government programs. One of them, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, said she had been stonewalled by USAID for years when trying to gain access to information about expenditure of taxpayers’ money.
“We love to feel good about helping starving children in name your country, but it’s not going there,” she said in an X Spaces session with Musk. “It’s going to pay rents in Paris, it’s going to support somebody’s fancy dinner, to entertain whoever.”
Billionaire businessman Elon Musk has commandeered computers of the US government.Credit: AP
But Kristina Drye, the USAID speechwriter, said the agency – and its tens of billions worth of aid and development expenditure – was one of the most watched in the federal government.
“Any sector can be reformed and improved, but this is not a good-faith effort to do that,” she said.
Drye took particular umbrage to Musk’s depiction of USAID staff as worms infecting an apple.
“As someone who has studied the decline of institutions and atrocities, that is an immediate red flag for me to not trust anything else he says.”
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