The Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk (Doge) gutted the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), taking a team worth over 10,000 to just below 300, in accordance with the internal E -Mail viewed by Wired and several current USAID employees.
This movement leaves only 12 people at the Agency’s African office and eight people in the Asian office, from around 290. They will stop several additional foreign employees, two USAID employees informed, but it is not clear how much.
“In Asia, there are more impoverished people than anywhere else, and our presence has always helped to counteract China’s influence,” says one USAID employee who received anonymity because of fear of retaliation and because they were not authorized to publicly talk about this agency publicly.
On Tuesday, USAID employees received an e-mail with information that all staff would be placed on administrative leave from Friday, February 7, except for “designated staff responsible for critical functions.” The notification was published on the Agency’s website shortly after. She also stated that employees of the agency stationed abroad would be referred to the United States.
USAID and the US Department of State did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
It wasn’t an unexpected move. USAID was a special target in the targeer with musk, with centibillionaire calling it “Criminal organization” on x i bragging about “feeding him with a chub”.
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President Donald Trump was similarly hostile to the agency. One of his first activities after taking office last month was the signing of an executive order to freeze foreign assistance, most of which are implemented by USAID. The change has already hindered anti -ludious work, including projects that facilitate people escape from work relationships in which they are enslaved and forced to commit digital fraud, Wirred informed on Wednesday.
Although the administration then explained that the work “saving life” would be able to continue under the emergency release program, the messy takeover of the agency prevented this in practice. As reported on Monday, the necessary works related to HIV/AIDS were disturbed, and employees in fields in countries such as Haiti are not able to access antiretroviral drugs – even at least a significant part of this work technically granted waiver.
Meanwhile, some current employees stationed abroad have not yet been informed about the latest changes in the agency. “The only official communication I received was from the local state of the State Department, asking if we moved, so that they could renovate our homes,” says one of the USAID employees stationed abroad.