At the end of a six-week evaluation, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) recommended the elimination of 83% of USAID projects, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated.
Rubio announced the new measures in an early Monday morning post on X, and he stated that 5,200 contracts were being canceled in total. According to him, the canceled contracts were equivalent to “tens of billions of dollars” being allocated “in ways that did not serve,” or even hurt, the national interests of the United States.
The State Department will now be in charge of the remaining eighty-eight percent of USAID activities, or around 1,000, according to Rubio. He added that Congress was consulted before the decision to transfer that authority was taken.
While posting on Monday morning, Rubio expressed his gratitude to DOGE and its “hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform.” Following up on the tweet, Musk said, “good working with you,” and he described the task as “tough but necessary.”
“The important parts of USAID should always have been with Dept of State,” he said.
Allegedly, last week, when meeting with members of President Trump’s Cabinet, including Musk, the two got into a heated argument over whether Rubio was taking sufficient action to impose cuts at USAID. The New York Times reports that Trump stepped in to support Rubio during the fight, telling Rubio that he was performing a “great job” under the intense scrutiny of his position. Following this, Trump stated on Truth Social that they “have a great relationship.”
Trump immediately set his sights on USAID when he took office. He halted all U.S. foreign aid programs for 90 days to assess their alignment with American interests. Along with other prominent critics, Musk has called the agency’s expenditures “beyond repair” and drawn comparisons between it and the laundering of illicit funds for left-wing charities.
A number of lawsuits have been filed in an effort to stop the Trump administration from dismantling USAID. In a last-minute decision, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s order that the Trump administration continue $2 billion in foreign assistance payments that were due to other nations under previous contracts.
The State Department was contacted by AWN Digital for comment, but they did not respond quickly.