Elon Musk’s destruction of USAID caused suffering or death to “hundreds of thousands” of people — many of whom were children, a former senior USAID official has alleged.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a 60-year-old federal humanitarian agency that was effectively halted and absorbed into the State Department following a sweeping 2025 executive push by Elon Musk’s DOGE.
A former USAID staffer exposes the horrors that came with Elon Musk dismantling the organization
In a new interview, Nicholas Enrich said that as the “top global health official at USAID at the time”, he had “a front row seat to the destruction.” He called USAID the agency that “kept Americans safe from infectious diseases” and “an implement of national security.” He contended that the dismantling was based on “conspiracy theories” rather than understanding its functions.
British-American writer Nathan J. Robinson, editor-in-Chief of the Current Affairs magazine, conducted this interview. He argued that he used adjectives like ‘evil’ and ‘depraved’ when talking about Musk because he “could save millions of lives and chooses not to.”
Enrich’s memoir, Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID, was published earlier this year. It narrates how Musk abetted the cancellation of the humanitarian aid organization using DOGE.
The book has already created wide-ranging reactions. “It’s a window into an asylum in which clueless zealots around Elon Musk were killing aid recipients worldwide without having a clue what they were even doing,” said author and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
On Feb 3, 2025, USAID workers experienced a total lockout from their official government accounts and servers. This was followed by a complete erasing of USAID’s digital presence. After the cancellation of 80% of USAID programs, Musk posted on X, saying, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.”
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