Trump, Musk Take A Bulldozer To ‘Completely Uncooperative’ Foreign Aid Agency

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) upended the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) structure after shuttering its office and publicly promising a shutdown of the agency Monday.

USAID’s status and future became murky after Musk claimed during an X Spaces discussion early Monday morning that he and Trump had agreed to shutter the agency. The Trump administration then reportedly directed personnel who typically work in the agency’s Ronald Reagan building headquarters to work from home, adding that “further guidance is forthcoming” in an overnight email obtained by NBC News. By Monday afternoon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed he became USAID’s new acting director, accusing the agency of behaving as a “global charity.”

“We’re spending taxpayer money here,” Rubio told reporters while on a diplomatic visit to El Salvador. “These are not donor dollars; these are taxpayer dollars, and we owe the American people the assurance that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest. And so far a lot of people who work at USAID have simply refused to cooperate … I’m the acting director of USAID.”

The State Department’s apparent takeover of the agency comes after Musk revealed he and DOGE “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” He later clarified during an X Spaces conversation after midnight Monday morning that he and Trump had agreed to scrap the agency entirely.

“None of this could be done without the full support of the president, you know,” Musk said. “And with regard to the USAID stuff, I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down … And I actually checked with him a few times. I said, ‘Are you sure?’ He’s like, ‘Yes.’ So we’re shutting it down.”

USAID appropriated over $40 billion in foreign aid in fiscal year 2023,