Elon Musk and President Donald Trump shut down USAID, the federal Government foreign aid agency, and locked out 600 employees overnight after the pair agreed it was “beyond repair”. The Mail has more.
The billionaire ‘first buddy’ led a civilian review of the federal Government with Trump’s go-ahead and decided this week to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Staff were shocked when they woke up Monday morning to emails instructing them to stay out of the agency’s DC headquarters.
“It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said of the six-decade US international aid and development agency. “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 said in the audio-only appearance on X.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss noted in the announcement on his social media site that he spoke with Trump about the agency and they “agreed we should shut it down”.
As of 2016, USAID reported that it had 10,235 employees on its payroll.
It managed more than $40 billion in appropriations in Fiscal Year 2023, which is less than 1% of the federal budget. USAID provides development and assistance in about 130 countries with these funds.
For this fiscal year, the President’s budget request was $28.3 billion in foreign assistance.
USAID staffers said they tracked 600 employees who reported being locked out of the agency’s computer systems overnight.
Those still in the system received messages to their work emails saying “at the direction of Agency leadership’ the headquarters building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday February 3rd.”
Copies of the email show that replies were sent to Gavin Kliger, one of the six young engineers working for Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which appears to be operating under the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
The website for USAID was also shutdown as of Monday morning.
The official government website for USAID and any former links for the site’s webpages now shows a browser error message: “This site can’t be reached.” …
Musk previewed the shut down earlier on Sunday when he attacked the agency in a post to X after Trump claimed it was “run by radical lunatics”.
“USAID is a criminal organisation,” Musk, who has become the President’s most powerful backer, wrote without providing evidence or proof of why he makes the claim.
He added, “Time for it to die” – and followed that up with multiple additional posts about the agency.
In one subsequent post, Musk doubled down and asked his 215 million followers: “Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people?”
He did not elaborate on the allegations, which included a report claiming officials in the previous administration had links to a Russian disinformation campaign.
Trump attacked the agency over the weekend, claiming it has “been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out… and then we’ll make a decision (on its future)”.
The President underscored his support for Musk, telling reporters on Sunday night he felt the billionaire was “doing a good job” even if they did not agree on every point.
Trump suggested that Musk wants to go even further with cost-cutting efforts, but says he has to holds his buddy back on some of his more ambitious ideas.
“He’s a big cost-cutter,” Trump said. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it or we’ll not go where he wants to go… he’s a smart guy. Very smart. And he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal Government.”
Afuera!
Worth reading in full.
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Yes please.!
Shock and awe!
Why can’t we have a Trump and Musk. Why can’t we shut down foreign aid until the country can afford it, perhaps past recipients might like to send aid to us, the state of our finances its very evident we need it.
The UK equivalent BBC Media Action. They portray themselves as a charity but, just like USAID, like to interfere in other countries with regime changes etc. From what UKC was reporting, they played a part in the Ukraine War in 2014.
Pretty impressive he hasn’t even been in power for two weeks. Like releasing a coiled spring. I guess an understanding has been reached among both the virtuous and the wicked Yanks that you either tear it all down now or it will destroy everything.
Like releasing a coiled spring
Absolutely. How refreshing this all is. But I despair, when I then reflect on our own governance. Not so much coiled spring, but limp lettuce.
Now the bonfire of the inanities and insanities is really taking off. Burn baby, burn.
“ “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.’”
NHS & Whitehall come to mind….And the Lords.
Every day something new at which to chuckle. Takes ones mind off our own self inflicted troubles; almost.
They could go further, and claw back money not spent in the way intended. Just the threat of that would deter future corruption.
They can’t say they weren’t warned.
That mention of the funding of gain of function. This is perhaps the greatest evil in the history of mankind and the perfidious attempt at justification by talking about dual use. And we don’t even know the full story yet like what they were doing exactly in the biolabs all over eastern Europe with a large concentration in Ukraine. These are signs of systemic rot and corruption that has persisted for so long that it can only create reproductions of its own diseased state. It is definitely true about the ball of worms.
Makes you wonder what foreign aid from Canada, Uk, Australia and Europe are funding
US AID is/was subject to the guidance of the President of the United States, the Secretary of State and National Security Council.
More than an aid agency, it looks to me like it’s a way to procure money from Congress for covert operations overseas. A coup here, a destabilisation campaign there.
The annual budget is 50 billion. I know Americans are generous souls that just want to help others, but that’s a hell of a lot of charity.
US AID – another money laundering operation.
How will the CIA interfere in the governance of other countries now?
JFK said that the CIA should be broken into a thousand pieces and scattered to the four winds. Very difficult to go after the CIA. If you drive around Washington you will see CIA cars they don’t need number plates and you can see that the people are fearful about them because they slow down or get out of the way for those going to Langley. The only way to dismantle the CIA is to bring about the understanding that they will checkmate themselves if they don’t disband. And you must codify a way of ensuring that no such entity ever develops again. Carl Jung said upon meeting Allen Dulles that in that moment he understood that the opposite of love isn’t hate but is power.
USAID and CIA Connection
USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, and the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, have had a complex relationship throughout history. According to various sources, USAID has at times served as a cover for CIA operations, particularly during the Cold War era. For instance, the 1960s-era Office of Public Safety, a division of USAID, was used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods, including torture techniques, as reported by William Blum.
More recently, there have been allegations that USAID has been involved in activities that could be seen as supporting CIA objectives. For example, in 2016, President Obama changed a law to allow the CIA to legally propagandize Americans, as claimed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This change in law could potentially allow for a closer collaboration between USAID and CIA operations, although specific details are not provided.
In addition, there are historical instances where USAID contractors have been linked to CIA operations. For example, Air America, a CIA airline, used USAID contractors for operations in Laos, as documented in CIA declassified documents.
It is important to note that USAID’s primary mission is to administer civilian foreign aid and development assistance, and its activities are guided by U.S. foreign policy. However, the historical and potential overlap with CIA operations suggests a nuanced relationship between the two agencies.
If USAID was simply an aid agency, it would not have needed a SCIF for handling top secret documents.
They have every western media outlet in the world and boast that the BBC is the most heavily infiltrated. The Reader’s Digest magazine was chock full of CIA goodness. I remember living abroad as a child and having to watch Sesame Street and feeling loathsome because of its origins. You can’t defeat them in a media sense although perhaps now the time is ripe. They have to know where they stand now that is the only way. I think they will disband very soon.
Just read an article on BBC which confirms that BBC Media Action receives substantial funding from USAID. I’ve always found it a bit creepy that food aid (distributed through UN WFP?) often has ‘Gift from the people of the United States’ printed on the sacks that are dropped from above, especially as the UN is supposed to be apolitical, who do they think the recipients are gonna call? If they could.
Ahahahahahahahaha bring it onnnnnnn!!
Imagine how much USAID could do if they put Bjorn Lomborg in charge!
Jolly good.
Carry on.
It’s important that we all have Free Speech. Not having it means that this type of inefficiency cannot be exposed. Nothing good can come from not having Free Speech. Mass Immigration, Climate Change, Covid, Foreign Policy, Education Policy, Energy Policy etc etc all must be scrutinised, and one way that gets done is via Social media like Elon Musk’s X. ——-It is a pity then that so many hundreds of thousands of people have their accounts suspended on X. This is often done by a robot and with little chance of accounts being restored. You would think that a so called Campion of Free Speech Platform like X would do all it could to allow freedom of expression and point of view and that those breaking the platforms rules could at least be warned if they were deemed to be breaking the sites rules and given a chance to either remove something they said or to learn not to indulge in speech that is allegedly “offensive” etc etc. ——But often people are simply suspended and that is the end of their participation. No warning NOTHING. —How can we expose things if we cannot speak freely?
What a wonderful breath of fresh air.
Excellent.