Elon Musk said President Donald Trump agreed the US Agency for International Development (USAID) needs to be “shut down,” following days of speculation over the future of the agency after its funding was frozen and dozens of its employees were put on leave.
“With regards to the USAID stuff, I went over it with (the president) in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said in an X Spaces conversation early Monday.
Musk said he checked with Trump “a few times,” and Trump confirmed he wants to shut down the agency, which dispenses billions in humanitarian aid and development funding annually.
Sunday evening, before the X Spaces conversation, when asked for comment on USAID, Trump told reporters: “It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out, and then we’ll make a decision” on its future.
Musk’s comments come after two top security officials at USAID were put on administrative leave Saturday night for refusing members of the Department of Government Efficiency access to systems at the agency, even when DOGE personnel threatened to call law enforcement, CNN reported.
Around 60 senior USAID staff were put on leave last week on accusations of attempting to circumvent Trump’s executive order to freeze foreign aid for 90 days. Another senior official was put on leave for trying to reverse that move after finding no evidence of wrongdoing.
Musk said USAID is “beyond repair,” among other attacks he made against the agency created by Congress as an independent body.
We don’t have “an apple with a worm in it,” he said. “We have a ball of worms. USAID is a ball of worms.”
Image: Chip Somodevilla—POOL/AFP/Getty Images
