Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Monday that he and President Donald Trump were in the process of shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development, escalating their war on the federal bureaucracy and defying the constitutional power of Congress to determine how money is spent.
Musk, the head of Trump’s government efficiency initiative, announced the shutdown in the middle of the night in an audio-only appearance on his social media site X.
“We’re shutting it down,” he said. At another point, he said “we’re in the process” of “shutting down USAID.”
Musk did not say what legal authority he believed the White House has to shut down a federal agency without congressional approval, or how quickly the administration planned to act. He said the idea had “the full support of the president” and that he had spoken with Trump on the matter several times.
“With regard to the USAID stuff, I went over [it] with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” he said. “I actually checked with him a few times [and] said, ‘Are you sure?’” he said. He said that Trump responded, “Yes.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s announcement early Monday morning.
Trump on Sunday said that Musk “is doing a good job,” and criticized USAID as “run by a bunch of radical lunatics,” though Trump did not go so far as to say he planned to shut down the agency, with or without congressional agreement.
Trump administration officials have discussed placing USAID under the authority of the State Department, according to more than a dozen current and former officials and sources familiar with the discussions, NBC News has reported, a move that Democratic lawmakers and legal experts have argued would violate a law adopted by Congress establishing the agency.
Trump has said that he is freezing virtually all U.S. foreign assistance pending a 90-day review.
Congress annually appropriates money for USAID to spend, primarily for foreign aid and internationally focused charities. Its budget for the 2023 fiscal year was about $40 billion, according to a report last month from the Congressional Research Service. That’s a tiny fraction of the overall federal discretionary spending of $1.7 trillion.
President John F. Kennedy created USAID by executive order in 1961 after Congress passed a reorganization of foreign assistance.
Musk’s announcement followed an unusual incident Saturday in which USAID’s director of security and his deputy were placed on administrative leave after they tried to prevent employees from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing secure USAID systems, five sources told NBC News. The DOGE employees threatened to call the U.S. Marshals, two of the sources said. The DOGE employees were eventually able to gain access to the secure systems, three of the sources said, but it was not clear what information they were able to obtain.
It was already clear last week that the Trump administration and Musk’s staff planned a radical shakeup of USAID, one of several agencies where fear and chaos are sweeping over the federal workforce. More than 50 career civil servants at USAID were placed on administrative leave last Monday.
Musk called USAID “beyond repair” and “hopeless.” He also said the agency was “not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a longtime critic of federal spending, joined Musk on the call and said she agreed with his assessment. It’s not clear, though, how widespread that view is, even in the Republican-controlled Congress.
A 1974 federal law known as the Impoundment Control Act says that the president generally cannot withhold funds that Congress has approved. Some Trump aides argue that the law is unconstitutional, foreshadowing a potential fight in the courts.
The hourlong event on X, shortly after midnight ET Monday, was the first time Musk had spoken publicly since he and a group of aides began overhauls of federal agencies last week.
Musk said he plans sweeping additional changes, including “wholesale removal of regulations.”
“Regulations basically should be default gone. Default gone, not default there, default gone,” he said, although he did not make clear if he was speaking for himself or for others in the administration.
Musk also said time was of the essence for Trump to act.
“This is our shot. This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have,” he said. “Now or never.”
