Officials are moving to close the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to Elon Musk.
During a live session on X, Musk said President Donald Trump “agreed we should shut it down.”
“As we dug into USAID it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms. If you have an apple with a worm in it, you can take the worm out. If you have a whole ball of worms, it’s hopeless,” Musk said. “USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple you just need to get rid of the whole thing. That’s why it’s got to go. It’s beyond repair.”
Musk further explained in a social media post: “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
The agency’s staffers were subsequently told to stay out of the agency’s Washington, D.C. headquarters. According to a report from Newsmax, about 600 employees were locked out of the USAID system over the weekend. Those who remained in the system received an email saying that “at the direction of Agency leadership,” the D.C. building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.”
Trump has said that USAID was “run by a bunch of radical lunatics.”
USAID has funded sex change surgeries in Guatemala.
Grant records indicate that the activist group Asociacion Lambda received $2 million from the agency to “strengthen trans-led organizations to deliver gender-affirming health care, advocate for improved quality and access to services, and provide economic empowerment opportunities.”
