Elon Musk · Donald Trump · Marco Rubio · State Department · Wired
USAID Whistleblower Confirms It Was Even Worse Than People Knew
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When billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) swept through government in the first months of 2025, there was one agency that felt the full force of the group’s desire to move fast and break things: the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Key facts
- When billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) swept through government in the first months of 2025, there was one agency that felt the full force of the group’s
- Nicholas Enrich: Starting February 3, 2025, they started to lose access to their emails and systems
- On January 28, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver for “lifesaving humanitarian assistance,” which should have allowed money for critical projects to continue to flow
- Within days, the agency’s staff had been cut from 10,000 to 300, and by July the agency had been merged with the State Department
Summary
DOGE’s mandate was to cut contracts and government spending in a futile quest to reduce the federal deficit by $2 trillion. By early February, the group had taken over the agency, shut down its emails, and left tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid funding in limbo. Enrich, who oversaw USAID projects that helped prevent the spread of diseases like malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis in countries across the world, was so disturbed by what he saw in DOGE’s takeover of the agency that he became a whistleblower. “It's not that these people were ignorant of global health and international development, they did not know how the government works,” says Enrich.