Billionaire Elon Musk, who is heading US President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government, gave an update on the effort early on Monday, saying they were working to shut down the US foreign aid agency USAID.
Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, discussed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a Monday social media talk on X, which he also owns. Trump has assigned Musk to lead a federal cost-cutting panel.
The conversation, which included former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Republican senators Joni Ernst and Mike Lee, began with Musk saying they were working to shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“It’s beyond repair,” Musk said, adding that Trump agrees it should be shut down.
On Sunday, it was reported that the Trump administration had removed two top security officials at USAID during the weekend after they tried to stop representatives from Musk’s DOGE from gaining access to restricted parts of the building, three sources said.
The website of USAID appeared to still be offline on Saturday and some users could not access it on Sunday. USAID has a staff of more than 10,000 people.
Speaking more broadly about cutting US expenses and fraud, Musk estimated the Trump administration can cut US$1 trillion from the US deficit next year.
Musk did not offer any evidence to support his fraud claim or explain how he reached the amount of US$1 trillion.
Since taking office 11 days ago, Trump has embarked on a massive government makeover, firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.
USAID was a tool for US imperialism. It may have done some good but the soft power was expended waging wars and committing genocide.
It’s good that it’s gone, but this makes me think US imperialism is going to stop trying to curry favor with soft power and kickbacks for compradors, and instead go full mask off and just coup or invade everyone they want shit from. I know that the hard power has been used excessively throughout US history for these goals already but I worry it could ramp up to new levels.
These are my concerns as well, there’s 0 chance this is an end to Imperialist aggression, just a change in character.
It may not be intended as an end to aggression, but the soft regime change tactic is a lot cheaper and more effective than direct aggression.
It used to be, for sure. It seems as though that hasn’t been working as well in recent years.
And now other countries like russia and china are taking up the slack.
yay, I guess?
How has China been picking up the slack? Who have they couped or invaded? Who have they sanctioned?
The slack in what?
At worst it will be no different. The US installs fascists. Not liberal democracy, not freedom fighters, fascists. If the US were more competent the entirety of South and central America would be full of internally feuding Pinochets.
What will Russia and China do on the global stage? Offer you cheap commodities? Continue not bombing the middle east?
Totalitarianism is when you don’t kill a million people abroad to make the line go up
even russia is unlikely to cause as much harm as the US did (though it’ll likely be dogshit), and china’s effects will be mostly good.
so yay, i guess.
You forgot what instance you’re on.