Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that Secretary of State Mario Rubio announced he will be acting administrator of USAID.
During a live session on X Spaces, previously Twitter Spaces, Elon Musk confirmed that he spoke with President Trump about the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the president "agreed that we should shut it down."
USAID is an independent agency within the U.S. government that provides assistance to foreign countries recovering from disasters, engaging in democratic reforms or trying to escape poverty. It works in over 100 countries.
"It became apparent that it's not an apple with a worm it in [sic]," Musk said. "What we have is just a ball of worms. You've got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It's beyond repair."
"We're shutting it down."
Musk followed up with a post on X, writing, "USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die."
USAID is the world's largest donor of humanitarian aid, and the U.S. government spends less than 1% of its total federal budget to support foreign assistance overall.
In 1961, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act, which President John F. Kennedy signed into law. Kennedy also signed an executive order establishing USAID as an independent agency.
USAID's website was taken offline on Saturday, and on Monday, yellow police tape and police officers blocked the Agency's lobby, and staffers were instructed to stay out of the building, according to the Associated Press.
Thousands of USAID employees have already been laid off, and hundreds were locked out of the Agency's computer systems overnight. AP reported that "those still in the system received emails saying that at the direction of Agency leadership, the headquarters building will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3."
Rumors have swirled that the Agency will become part of the State Department, and as of the time of this article, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he has been assigned acting administrator of USAID, but said he has "delegated the authority" to someone else who he will be in touch with.
THE LARGER TREND
Elon Musk was named the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was officially made part of the U.S. government on Jan. 20 through an executive order President Trump signed renaming the U.S. Digital Service.
Over the years, USAID has worked to expand access to health technologies to strengthen digital health infrastructure globally.
The Agency has released several documents guiding investments and implementation of digital health technology as part of its development and humanitarian assistance programs. Documents include its Digital Health Investment Principles, Digital Strategy and Vision for Action in Digital Health (aka Digital Health Vision).
Last year, the Agency released its digital health position paper outlining the Agency's strategic vision for investments and activities to advance digital technologies.
The paper emphasizes priorities for digital health investments, including evaluating and strengthening a country's digital health infrastructure, aligning investments with national digital health strategies and architectures, and leveraging global goods, such as open-source digital tools.
It also details six guiding principles for USAID's digital health activities, including a commitment to person-centered, point-of-care digital systems; engaging local partners; investing in resources that foster global digital health advancement; requiring standards for integrated health service delivery; supporting country-led digital health governance; and enhancing data privacy, cybersecurity and regulatory frameworks.
USAID recently released its Digital Policy 2024 - 2034, which said, "The Agency must continue to embrace and harness the opportunities that digital technologies present to our partner communities while mitigating the risks that are inherent in digital technology use. We must work to allow everyone access to the benefits of this new digital world."
"As USAID looks to the next ten years and beyond, this Digital Policy+ will guide our efforts to innovate thoughtfully, enhance responsibility and accountability, generate reliable and usable evidence, and launch dynamic partnerships that support security, human rights, and economic prosperity for people everywhere."
USAID, the U.S. Department of State, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) also sought to publish an AI in Global Development Playbook that incorporates NIST's AI Risk Management Framework's "principles, guidelines, and best practices into the social, technical, economic, governance, human rights and security conditions of contexts beyond U.S. borders," to comply with President Biden's Executive Order 14110.
Biden's executive order aimed to establish standards for the safe, secure and trustworthy development of AI across various sectors, including healthcare.
On his first day in office of his second term, President Trump revoked Joe Biden's 2023 executive order.
Some of USAID's documents can still be found and accessed through the Federal Register's official website, managed by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.