Washington (AP) Following entrepreneur Elon Musk’s announcement that President Donald Trump had agreed with him to close the U.S. Agency for International Development, staff members were sent a notice on Monday to avoid the agency’s Washington offices.
600 employees who reported being locked out of USAID’s computer systems overnight were traced down, according to USAID staff. According to emails sent to those still in the system, the headquarters building will be closed to Agency employees on Monday, February 3, under the directive of Agency leadership.
The events follow Musk’s announcement early Monday that he had discussed the six-decade U.S. aid and development agency with Trump and that he agreed we should close it down. Musk is leading an extraordinary civilian study of the federal government with the Republican president’s consent.
Musk claimed that it became clear that there was a problem. We have nothing more than a mess. Basically, you have to get rid of everything. It cannot be fixed. We are going to shut it down.
A current and former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Sunday that Musk’s remarks on the internet followed the administration’s decision to put two top security officers at USAID on leave for refusing to provide Musk’s government-inspection teams with sensitive material in restricted areas.
According to the former official, access to the assistance agency’s confidential information, including intelligence reports, was eventually granted to members of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, on Saturday.
John Voorhees and Deputy Brian McGill, two USAID security officials, felt legally forced to refuse access since Musk’s DOGE crew lacked a high enough security clearance to view that material.
Because they were not authorized to release the material, the current and former U.S. officials who were aware of the incident talked on condition of anonymity.
Musk declared that USAID is a criminal organization in response to an X post on the news on Sunday. It’s time to pass away. He then wrote more posts on the aid organization on X.