The BBC is the latest press organization to face the wrath of MAGA’s online vigilantes after Elon Musk incorrectly suggested that American taxpayers, via the U.S. Agency for International Development, are funding the U.K. state broadcaster’s World Service and other programming.

An international charity affiliated with the state-funded broadcaster took the unusual step of releasing a statement saying that the funding it receives from the American government’s international development agency was not for the BBC’s editorial operations but rather for a program aimed at developing press and other forms of communication to “help deliver stronger democracies” across the globe.

“As the BBC’s international charity, we are completely separate from BBC News and wholly reliant on our donors and supporters to carry out our work,” BBC Media Action said in the statement.

Like many other international aid organizations, the charity said it is disappointed by the Trump administration’s decision to temporarily freeze funding for international development programs.

“BBC Media Action has been affected by the temporary pause in US government funding, which amounts to about 8% of our income in 2023-24. We’re doing everything we can to minimize the impact on our partners and the people we serve,” the group said.

Earlier this week, Mr. Musk posted on X a screenshot of a graph from BBC Media Action showing a breakdown of the funding it receives from all donors. “BBC is literally state-funded media,” he said, suggesting that the American taxpayers’ money was being used to finance the BBC’s predominately left-wing — and often anti-American — coverage of international affairs.

The accounting from BBC Media Action described USAID as one of its top contributors in 2023-2024, accounting for some US$3.2 million of its roughly US$30 million annual budget. Among its other contributors are the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, and Sweden, as well as the European Commission. USAID is said to be the second-largest donor behind the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office. 

The brouhaha erupted following reports Wednesday that the American publisher Politico also received money from USAID and other agencies for subscriptions to its “Pro” service, which provides data and granular reporting about the business of government to corporate and government clients.

The White House announced late Wednesday following the reports that those payments would be halted immediately. “I can confirm that the more than $8 million in taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers’ dime will no longer be happening,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a daily briefing Wednesday.