Over the weekend, news broke that Elon Musk said the Trump administration would be shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, a decades-old independent government agency that employs 10,000 people, three-quarters of whom are stationed overseas. USAID managed more than $40 billion in spending in fiscal year 2023.
How the money is being spent is at the heart of the dispute at a time when Musk is charged with cutting wasteful government spending. And this is not the first time it’s been suggested that USAID be put under the State Department, as both Democratic and Republican administrations have toyed with the idea of making USAID a part of the State Department. The first Trump administration drafted plans to merge USAID under the State Department in 2017, but those plans were eventually scrapped because of bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill.
What is USAID?
In September 1961, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act. Later that fall, President John F. Kennedy created USAID by executive order to implement the Foreign Assistance Act.
Kennedy said at the time, “There is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations — our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy — and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.”

A report from the Congressional Research Service issued in January 2025 calls USAID the “lead international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government.”
The modern-day concept of international development assistance took shape after World War II ended in 1945. First, the Marshall Plan provided significant assistance to Europe after the war, and it was followed by an international developmental assistance program proposed by President Harry S. Truman. Truman’s plan had two goals: creating markets for the United States by reducing poverty and increasing production in developing countries, and diminishing the threat of communism by helping countries prosper under capitalism. At least three additional programs were created after Truman’s 1950 plan that were folded into USAID in 1961.
In fiscal year 2023, the year with the most recent full report, USAID worked in 130 countries. The top 10 recipient countries, according to the Congressional Research Service report, were Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria.

USAID generally focuses on global health issues, and from the early 1990s to 2022, health-related projects received the largest share of USAID funding. In 2022, humanitarian assistance was the top sector and in 2023, it was governance. USAID has projects focused on HIV/AIDS through the PEPFAR program, malaria, tuberculosis and polio. They support economic growth through agriculture, trade and investment; work to improve education, particularly in crisis and conflict situations; strengthen democratic governance and human rights; and respond to humanitarian crises with disaster relief and emergency aid.
USAID and religious freedom
USAID also works to promote religious freedom. According to an archived copy of a USAID brief, advancing international religious freedom is a major, bipartisan foreign policy priority of the United States. The organization seeks to promote religious tolerance; reduce levels of religious persecution, bias and discrimination; reduce faith-related violent extremism and terrorism; and “track and prevent potential mass atrocities through early warning systems.”

An archived copy of the USAID website quotes President Donald Trump from 2018 as saying, “The free exercise of religion is a source of personal and national stability, and its preservation is essential to protecting human dignity. Religious diversity strengthens our communities and promotes tolerance, respect, understanding, and equality.”
USAID offers (or offered) training on preventing mass atrocities, recognizing that infringement on religious freedom is a key indicator of risk. They also provided training on “religion, conflict and peacebuilding” and a video training on promoting religious freedom.

What’s the controversy?
Early Monday morning, Elon Musk held a conversation on X that included Vivek Ramaswamy, Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst. During the conversation, Musk railed on USAID, calling it a corrupt organization. “It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”
His comments followed reports that the two top security officials at USAID were put on administrative leave Saturday night after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems. The employees working for Musk’s task force who clashed with John Voorhees, USAID’s director of security, and his deputy Brian McGill were seeking to enter a secure area of the agency’s offices to get at classified material, reports The New York Times.
Later Monday morning, Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, that “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” Trump said that USAID has been “run by a bunch of RADICAL LUNATICS and we’re getting them out.” Lee retweeted the comments on his “BasedMikeLee” account and added his own: “Expel the ‘radical lunatics’ from USAID!”
USAID staffers were also instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters Monday, and yellow police tape and officers blocked the agency’s lobby, according to The Associated Press. Members of Congress also attempted to enter the building and are being prevented from doing so, according to the New York Times. More than 600 employees reported being locked out of the aid agency’s computer systems overnight and the agency’s website and X account have been taken offline.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that he is now the acting administrator. Rubio told reporters that many of the agency’s programs would continue under the State Department but blamed the change on its workers’ high levels of “insubordination,” reports the New York Times. Speaking to reporters in El Salvador on Monday, Rubio accused USAID of not cooperating with requests for information on how it spends taxpayer dollars and that a review was underway to address the agency’s potential reorganization.
In a letter sent to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rubio wrote that “current foreign assistance are severely inefficient and do not substantially benefit the American people.” USAID has “numerous conflicting, overlapping, and duplicative functions that it shares with the Department of State.” Additionally, he wrote that the review and potential reorganization may include “the suspension or elimination of programs, projects or activities; closing or suspending missions or posts; closing, reorganizing, downsizing, or renaming establishments, organizations, bureaus, centers, or offices; reducing the size of the workforce at such entities; and contracting out or privatizing functions.”
Rubio’s letter concludes that the Department of State and “other pertinent entities” will be consulting with Congress to “reorganize and absorb certain bureaus, offices, and missions of USAID.”
Commentary from the Brookings Institution says merging USAID into the State Department would undermine U.S. strategic interests and is also illegal.
Section 7036 of the 2024 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act states that Congress prohibits “reorganization, redesign, or other plans described in subsection (b) by the Department of State, the United States Agency for International Development, or any other Federal department, agency, or organization funded by this Act without prior consultation by the head of such department, agency, or organization with the appropriate congressional committees.”
According to Just Security, Trump can drastically curtail USAID with executive actions alone; however, he “may not unilaterally override” a statute by executive order.