Elon Musk just began shutting down this government agency hours before employees were supposed to report to work
Musk, the billionaire in charge of Donald Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency,” has claimed that the president agreed to “shut down” USAID.
Elon Musk escalated his mission to shrink the federal government on Monday, Feb. 3, by closing the USAID headquarters hours before employees were scheduled to show up for work, hinting that the next step is shuttering the agency entirely.
The United States Agency for International Development is one of the largest aid organizations in the world, established under President John F. Kennedy to provide a variety of foreign assistance programs in developing nations.
But on Monday, just two days after the agency’s website went dark and amid days of speculation about its future, the USAID headquarters in Washington had been shut down and employees had been instructed not to return to work, according to reports from the BBC, The Associated Press and Reuters.
Before police tape blocked off the agency’s lobby, employees told the AP that 600 people were locked out of the USAID computer systems the night prior. For those who still had access, emails reportedly came in instructing them that the offices were closed to agency personnel on Monday “at the direction of Agency leadership.”