Musk is sending his agents to sensitive federal agencies and taking over. He has taken control of the payments system at the U.S. Treasury, which processes trillions of dollars in Social Security payments, Medicare, Medicaid, and other obligations and holds personally identifiable information about recipients. They gained access to the computers of the Office of Personnel Managenent, which has records of federal employees, and locked out its government overseers.

Now his team has barged into the offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development, clashed with security officers who barred their entry into restricted spaces; the security officers were suspended, and Musk’s team is now downloading their computers.

The Washington Post reported:

The Trump administration has removed two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development after they refused to let representatives of Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” access restricted spaces at the agency, said current and former USAID officials.

The placement of the security officials — John Voorhees and his deputy — on administrative leave is the latest effort by the Trump administration and Musk to wrest control of the world’s largest provider of food assistance, which they have denigrated, without offering evidence, as left-wing and corrupt amid objections from Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

Amid the turmoil at the agency, Matt Hopson, the USAID chief of staff and a political appointee, resigned, according to a current and former USAID official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation. Hopson did not respond to requests for comment.

On Sunday, Musk repeatedly attacked USAID on X, calling the long-standing government agency “evil” and a “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.”

“USAID is a criminal organization,” he added. “Time for it to die.”

By Sunday afternoon, USAID’s X account had been taken down, with a message saying the account “doesn’t exist.”

Reuters reported that the Trump administration was dismantling USAID and had fired more than 100 of its career staff.

The New York Times reported that the Trump administration will probably shift the agency into the State Department. Trump currently has imposed a 80-day freeze on all foreign aid.

State Department officials did not answer inquiries seeking to clarify the purpose of the moves, which lawmakers and aid workers said could be anything from a restructuring to an effort to significantly downsize, if not eliminate, most U.S. foreign aid programs.

But Democratic lawmakers said they feared a potentially bleak endgame for the aid agency.

“All the signals of how the senior staff have been put on administrative leave, many of the field staff and headquarters staff have been put on a gag order,” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, who sits on the Senate panels on foreign relations and appropriations, said Saturday afternoon in an interview.

“It seems more like the early stages of shutting down than it does of reviewing it or merely retitling it,” he added.

U.S.A.I.D. is the government’s lead agency for humanitarian aid and development assistance. Since it was established in 1961, it has received foreign policy guidance from the State Department, but otherwise functioned as an independent entity.

Ironically, the Washington Post published an editorial today defending the value of foreign, especially humanitarian aid.

Foreign assistance is one of the more misunderstood items in the federal budget. In creates an enormous bang for a relatively small buck. American aid supports thousands of programs across 204 countries. It provides lifesaving drugs for millions of people afflicted with HIV/AIDS and malaria. It purifies drinking water, helps rid former war zones of leftover land mines, and trains local police to combat human trafficking and the illegal wildlife trade.
For many people around the world, aid is also the most visible symbol of U.S. power — soft power — and a tangible demonstration of America’s decency. Amounting to $68 billion in fiscal 2023, foreign aid is only about 1 percent of the federal budget. Yet it has long been in the crosshairs of some fiscal conservatives and other critics who deem it a waste of taxpayer dollars that could be better spent at home.

On President Donald Trump’s first day back in office, he signed an executive order suspending all foreign aid for 90 days, pending a review, saying the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed up with a cable on Jan. 24 to all U.S. diplomatic outposts stopping work on most foreign aid programs during the review period, which is supposed to be completed by the time the freeze expires. Initially, exemptions were made only for emergency food aid and military assistance to Israel and Egypt — and conspicuously not for aid to Ukraine or Taiwan. Then on Tuesday, perhaps bowing to global outrage and criticism, Rubio issued an additional waiver for lifesaving humanitarian assistance…

Consider just a few of the programs taxpayers fund, starting with PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, launched under President George W. Bush in 2003. By the end of last year, PEPFAR was providing antiretroviral treatment for nearly 21 million people in 55 countries and delivering pre-exposure prophylaxis (to prevent people from contracting HIV) to 2.5 million people. In South Africa, PEPFAR covers much of the costs for staff to administer the drugs, for HIV-prevention messaging and for supporting the country’s HIV research. It remains unclear whether Rubio’s waiver extends to PEPFAR, but it should. A months-long delay would cost lives.

The United States is also the world’s largest donor to the global fight against malaria, mostly through the President’s Malaria Initiative, known as PMI. In fiscal 2024, Congress allocated $795 million to the U.S. Agency for International Development for the effort to diagnose and treat malaria and to distribute insecticide-treated mosquito nets. With even a short suspension of this aid, prevention gains could be reversed, especially in malaria-prone cities such as Lagos, Nigeria, African health officials warn….

All in all, foreign aid is an extraordinarily effective policy tool. Helping eradicate poverty and promote democracy generates goodwill that makes the United States stronger. Combating life-threatening pathogens and removing the causes of economic and social instability make the world safer. Expanding global prosperity creates new markets for American products.

Rubio’s waiver should expand to include all programs vital to health and well-being. And the secretary should see that the review is done quickly and fairly, so that the flow of aid can resume before the pause does lasting damage.

The editorial was written in response to Trump’s 90-day freeze. It did not acknowledge the all-out assault on USAID, nor the fact that Trump is dubious about all foreign aid and Musk thinks it’s “evil.”

Bear in mind that Musk does not believe in philanthropy. He is the world’s richest man, with wealth of more than $400 billion. But where is his philanthropy? Has he endowed any universities, hospitals, museums, medical research? Or anything else. He once denounced Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife McKenzie Scott because she was so generous with her gifts to struggling nonprofits; he said she was undermining Western civilization. I can’t find evidence of any philanthropy on his part. If it exists, it’s well hidden.

Elon Musk has a hard, cold heart. If he has one.