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Marco Rubio takes over as USAID's acting head amid Elon Musk’s ‘shut down’ threat
Elon Musk said USAID humanitarian agency will be "shutting down" as part of his radical – and critics say unconstitutional – drive to shrink US government.
Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, announced on Monday that he had taken charge of the US aid agency, vowing to end its "insubordination" to President Donald Trump's agenda, news agency AFP reported.
Following a pledge by Donald Trump's billionaire ally and advisor, Elon Musk, to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) — which saw its website go offline over the weekend — Marco Rubio confirmed that he and the State Department had taken control of the independent agency.
"I'm the acting director of USAID," Marco Rubio told reporters on a visit to El Salvador, although he said he was delegating day-to-day duties to a staffer.
Rubio, who previously supported foreign aid as a senator, stated that while many of USAID’s operations would continue, the agency had been acting more like an “independent non-governmental entity”.
"In many cases, USAID is engaged in programs that contradict our national strategy," he said, adding that efforts to reform the agency had been ongoing for the past 20 to 30 years.
He also accused USAID officials—many of whom have been placed on leave—of refusing to provide the new Donald Trump administration with details about their funding and priorities.
"Such insubordination makes a proper review impossible," he asserted. "That stops now."
Elon Musk, the world's richest person, said on Monday the giant USAID humanitarian agency will be "shutting down" as part of his radical -- and critics say unconstitutional -- drive to shrink the US government.
Employees at the US Agency for International Development, which runs aid programs in about 120 countries, were instructed by email not to go to their offices Monday. Some 600 staffers found themselves locked out of their computer systems, ABC News reported.
Musk called USAID "a criminal organization" and declared "you've got to basically get rid of the whole thing."
The founder of SpaceX and Tesla -- who has massive contracts with the US government and was the biggest donor to Trump's presidential campaign -- said he had cleared the unprecedented move against a major wing of US government with Trump himself.
"I went over with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down," Musk said in a discussion on his X online platform.
USAID is the aid arm of US foreign policy, funding health and emergency programs in the world's poorest regions. It is also seen as an important source of soft power for the superpower in its struggle for influence with rivals including China.
Echoing far-right Republicans, Musk used X to call the agency "a viper's nest of radical-left marxists who hate America."
(With inputs from agencies)
