Elon Musk has called for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to “die,” following reports that two senior security officials were placed on leave for denying access to his representatives to classified materials.
Musk, appointed by former President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), labeled USAID a “criminal organisation” after the officials reportedly refused to grant members of his cost-cutting task force entry to secure areas at the agency’s Washington, DC headquarters due to their lack of security clearances.
“Time for it to die,” Musk posted on his social media platform X.
The two officials, USAID’s Director of Security John Voorhees and Deputy Brian McGill, were reportedly put on leave after the incident, which was first covered by CNN. Despite the confrontation, DOGE personnel were later granted access to areas containing classified information.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung denied that DOGE personnel had attempted to access secure areas, calling the reports “fake news.”
However, Katie Miller from DOGE suggested the team had attempted entry but did not access classified materials without proper clearances.
The incident has raised concerns about Trump’s efforts to reduce or eliminate USAID, which has been under scrutiny amid a freeze on foreign aid.
Speculation grew when the USAID website briefly went offline, with a simplified page appearing on the Department of State’s site, leading to further rumors of its potential merger.
Democratic Senator Chris Coons criticized Trump’s actions, calling them detrimental to US safety, while former USAID official Jeremy Konyndyk warned that dismantling the agency without Congressional approval would be illegal.
“If this gambit succeeds – if Trump (or Elon) can just override Congressional statutes and funding mandates, and Congress acquiesces – it’s a very dark sign … and it won’t stop at USAID,” Konyndyk said on X.
Democratic lawmakers also raised alarm about the scale of Musk’s influence over the government despite him not holding elected office.
Musk’s clash with USAID comes after The New York Times and The Associated Press news agency reported over the weekend that DOGE had gained access to the federal payment system, which holds sensitive personal information about millions of Americans.
“This is a five alarm fire. The people elected Donald Trump to be President – not Elon Musk,” New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on X.
“Having an unelected billionaire, with his own foreign debts and motives, raiding US classified information is a grave threat to national security. This should not be a partisan issue.”
On Sunday, Trump told reporters that his administration would get the “radical lunatics” out of USAID before making a decision on its future.
Trump later singled out aid to South Africa, pledging to cut off “all future funding” in response to land confiscations and what he said was the poor treatment of “certain classes of people”.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last week signed a controversial law that allows the confiscation of white farmers’ land without compensation in certain cases.
The US allocated nearly $440m in assistance to South Africa in 2023, according to US government data.
“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding that the funding freeze would stay in place until a “full investigation of this situation has been completed”.
The US is by far the world’s largest source of foreign assistance, although less than 1 percent of its spending goes to aid and some other countries give more as a proportion of their budgets.
Washington gave out $72bn in foreign aid across nearly 180 countries in 2023, with more than half of it disbursed through USAID.
