The future of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was thrown into uncertainty Monday after Elon Musk, leading efforts to restructure the federal government, announced that President Donald Trump had approved shutting it down.
In Washington, USAID headquarters remained closed, with employees instructed to stay home. Logos and images of its aid work were removed from building walls, and its website and social media accounts were replaced with a scaled-down version on the State Department’s site.
The agency, long at the center of U.S. international aid efforts, has become a target in Trump and Musk’s push to reshape the government. Critics argue the agency has leaned politically partisan, a claim Trump and his allies have frequently emphasized.
Lawmakers and aid workers had been preparing for Trump to dissolve the agency and merge it into the State Department—a move that seemed imminent Monday morning after Musk’s remarks on X, the social media platform he owns.
“With regards to the USAID stuff, I went over it with (the president) in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said in a X Spaces conversation early Monday.
USAID employees received an email shortly after midnight instructing them not to report to their Washington office, CNN reported, citing multiple sources.
“At the direction of Agency leadership, the USAID headquarters at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C. will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, February 3, 2025. Agency personnel normally assigned to work at USAID headquarters will work remotely tomorrow, with the exception of personnel with essential on-site and building maintenance functions individually contacted by senior leadership,” said the email, according to CNN.
Over the weekend, two top security officials at USAID were reportedly put on administrative leave for refusing members of the Department of Government Efficiency access to systems at the agency, even when DOGE personnel threatened to call law enforcement.
The DOGE personnel wanted to gain access to USAID security systems and personnel files, three sources said. Two of those sources also said the DOGE personnel wanted access to classified information, which only those with security clearances and a specific need to know are able to access.
