Musk says Trump wants to shut down U.S. foreign aid agency.
President Trump has not said the U.S. Agency for International Development should be shut down. Elon Musk's comments add to questions about its future..
Elon Musk said early Monday that President Trump believes the U.S. Agency for International Development should be shut down, raising questions about the administration's plans for the U.S. government's main agency for humanitarian aid and development assistance. Mr. Trump did not say the agency should be dissolved. Musk said during an event broadcast on X, his social media platform, that he had discussed USAID in detail with the president, who agreed "we need to shut it down."
"I want to be clear," Musk added. "I actually checked with him several times. I said, 'Are you sure?' 'Yes.' So let's shut it down."
In comments to reporters on Sunday, Mr. Trump said he believed the agency was run by "radical lunatics."
RECORDING
"We're going to take them out and then we'll make a decision," he said.
The Trump administration's moves to cut international aid programs that rely on grants from U.S. agencies have plunged aid groups around the world into crisis. USAID spent about $38.1 billion on health services, disaster relief, poverty reduction efforts and other programs in fiscal year 2023. That's less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
In Washington, current and former USAID employees and lawmakers have raised the possibility that the congressionally funded agency could be incorporated into the State Department in a significantly reduced form. The State Department and USAID did not respond to requests for comment Sunday.
Trump administration appointees have already suspended dozens of senior USAID officials and issued cease-and-desist orders that have led to the firing of hundreds of contractors. On Saturday, the agency's two top security officials were placed on administrative leave after refusing to allow representatives of Mr. Musk's task force access to internal systems, according to officials familiar with the matter. Mr. Musk's job, called the Department of Government Efficiency, is not a department. But President Trump has given him broad latitude to find ways to reduce government spending.
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