USAID officials on leave as Musk says Trump considering shuttering foreign aid agency

According to Newsmax, an email was sent to USAID staffers saying, "At the direction of Agency leadership" the headquarters facilities "will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3."

Top officials were placed on leave over the weekend after they denied aides working with Musk access to internal data systems. According to the New York Times, Matt Hopson, who was the head of USAID, resigned in recent days as well. The staffers working with Musk were seeking to get into an area with classified materials but clashed with USAID's security director John Voorhees as well as his deputy Brian McGill.

McGill and Voorhees were the latest senior officials from USAID to be put on leave after the Trump administration suspended 60 officials that were issued stop-work orders.

Musk said at an X Spaces event sunday evening, "None of this could be done without the full support of the president. I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed with that we should shut it down. I want to be clear. I actually checked with him a few times. I said, 'Are you sure?’ 'Yes.’ So we’re shutting it down."

"It became apparent that its not an apple with a worm it in," Musk added. "What we have is just a ball of worms. You've got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It's beyond repair."

Over the weekend, when Trump was asked about the move to suspect those at USAID, he said the agency was being run by "radical lunatics."

The developments come as Musk, along with staffers associated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are spearheading an effort to cut spending from the government as much as possible. Musk has set a first-year goal of cutting $1 trillion in federal spending.