Elon Musk Announces He’s Shuttering USAID in Defiance of Congressional Rules, Citing President Trump’s Approval

Tech Titan and President Trump appointee Elon Musk said that he and Mr. Trump have begun the process of shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development in defiance of Congress’s constitutional power.The head of the President’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency took to his social media platform X in the middle of the night to announce the closure.“We’re shutting it down,” he said in an audio livestream on the social media platform early Monday morning, according to NBC News. “we’re in the process [of] shutting down USAID.”Mr. Musk did not elaborate on what legal authority the current administration has to go forward with a full closure of a federal agency without congressional approval but said that the idea had “the full support of the president.”“With regard to the USAID stuff, I went over [it] with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Mr. Musk said during the stream. “I actually checked with him a few times [and] said, ‘Are you sure?'” Mr. Musk added that Mr. Trump told him, “Yes.”According to the Associated Press, DOGE staff recently visited USAID offices seeking access to classified information without proper security clearances. Security officials John Vorhees and Brian McGill were placed on leave after denying this request. The staffers eventually were able to access the agency’s intelligence reports.Mr. Musk’s statement comes as the Trump Administration has been mulling over a unilateral reshuffling of USAID, changing its current status as a standalone entity and moving under the purview of the State Department. On Sunday, USAID’s official website and X account had been taken down.The audio post came after Mr. Musk spent most of Sunday posting about USAID, saying he would rather see the agency shuttered completely.“USAID was a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America,” he wrote in one post on X.“USAID is a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote in another post.“Time for it to die.”

Elon Musk Announces He’s Shuttering USAID in Defiance of Congressional Rules, Citing President Trump’s Approval

Elon Musk Announces He’s Shuttering USAID in Defiance of Congressional Rules, Citing President Trump’s Approval

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