Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who leads President Donald Trump's federal cost-cutting initiative, announced plans to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of a broader effort to shrink the government.
Speaking on a social media talk on X early Monday, Musk described USAID as "beyond repair" and confirmed that President Trump supports the decision. Musk, who also heads Tesla and SpaceX, was joined in the discussion by former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Senators Joni Ernst and Mike Lee.
The move comes as part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the panel Musk leads to identify federal budget cuts. USAID, the world’s largest single donor, disbursed $72 billion in global assistance in fiscal year 2023, supporting programs ranging from women’s health and clean water to HIV/AIDS treatment and anti-corruption efforts.
Musk claimed the administration could cut $1 trillion from the U.S. deficit next year, citing alleged fraud in foreign aid, though he provided no evidence to support his claims.
The announcement follows reports that the Trump administration removed two top security officials at USAID over the weekend after they resisted DOGE representatives' attempts to access restricted areas within the agency.
USAID’s website remains offline, and concerns are mounting over the fate of critical humanitarian programs. Trump's "America First" policy, which includes a global freeze on most U.S. foreign aid, has raised alarms internationally, with refugee aid, landmine clearance, and HIV treatments at risk of elimination.
Musk’s expanding influence over government systems, including reported access to the U.S. Treasury’s payment infrastructure, has sparked criticism from lawmakers. Senator Peter Welch (D-VT), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, condemned Musk's access as a "gross abuse of power" and called for greater transparency.
Despite the backlash, Trump continues to back Musk's leadership. "He's a big cost-cutter," Trump said on Sunday. "Sometimes we won't agree with it... but I think he's doing a great job. He's a smart guy. Very smart."
Musk’s team has also reportedly taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), locking career civil servants out of systems containing sensitive data on millions of federal employees.
Since returning to office 11 days ago, Trump has initiated a sweeping overhaul of the federal government, dismissing hundreds of civil servants and installing loyalists across key agencies.
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European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Kazakhstan’s security service has arrested Nurlan Zhakupov, CEO of Samruk-Kazyna, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, on suspicion of corruption. Yelzhas Otynshiyev, Chairman of KTZ, Kazakhstan’s national railway firm has also been detained.
Eight people have been killed and at least 17 injured after an apartment building collapsed into a neighbouring construction site in Brooklyn, New York, as rescuers continued searching the rubble for possible survivors.
BMW is recalling more than 720,000 vehicles in the U.S. over a fire risk, warning owners to park outside and away from buildings until repairs are completed. The recall follows 10 reported fires involving cars previously repaired for the same fault.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 3.7 million children in Afghanistan are suffering from acute malnutrition, as worsening drought and funding shortages threaten to deepen the crisis amid the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye.
A consortium of Türkiye’s Limak and Qatar’s HBK Contracting has won an international tender to build and operate a new airport terminal in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, under a 23-year public-private partnership, with the project potentially costing up to $300 million.
Spain’s parliament has approved a government package aimed at easing the country’s housing crisis, a day after workers staged the first general strike in 14 years over soaring housing costs.
Here's your AnewZ Technology Daily Brief for the 13th of November. This week, a Microsoft outage hit Australian agencies, Google restricted mapping data in South Korea, a lawsuit targeted advanced AI development, and Nvidia faced a leadership crisis after Jensen Huang's resignation.
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