'Just a ball of worms': Musk says Trump ready to shut down 'criminal organization' USAID
The agency's website has gone dark, and thousands of workers have already been kicked to the curb.
President Donald Trump, convinced that the U.S. "foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values," is taking an axe to the status quo — and it appears that the U.S. Agency for International Development might be next on the chopping block.
Elon Musk told Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Vivek Ramaswamy in an X Spaces conversation early Monday that the president has agreed that USAID, the pre-eminent international humanitarian and development arm of the federal government, cannot be fixed with "minor housecleaning" and must be "shut down."
"As we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have, actually, just a ball of worms," said Musk. "It's hopeless. USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple, you just gotta basically get rid of the whole thing."
Musk noted further that Trump "agreed we should shut it down."
The stated mission of USAID, which was established in 1961 to implement the Foreign Assistance Act, is to "partner to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing [American] security and prosperity."
According to the Congressional Research Service, in fiscal year 2023 — the most recent year for which complete data is available — the agency managed over $40 billion in combined appropriations and employed over 10,000 individuals, two-thirds of whom worked overseas, not including institutional support contractors.
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