USAID closes HQ to staffers Monday as Musk says Trump supports shutting agency down

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Former USAID official warns Elon Musk's push to shut down the agency is 'dangerous'

Former USAID head of global health Atul Gawande joins 'America's Newsroom' to discuss Elon Musk's claim that President Donald Trump fully supports shutting down the agency.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) staffers were told in an email that its Washington headquarters would be closed to staffers Monday, two sources confirmed to Fox News Digital.

Some staffers reported getting locked out of the USAID computer systems overnight, according to The Associated Press. People who remained in the system got emails stating that "at the direction of Agency leadership" the headquarters facility "will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3."

Elon Musk, who is spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort, had said during an X spaces conversation that President Donald Trump agreed that USAID, which distributes humanitarian, development and security assistance across the world, should be shut down.

Musk indicated that the shut-down process is underway. 

He said that unlike an apple contaminated by a worm, the agency is "a bowl of worms."

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President-elect Donald Trump greets Elon Musk as he arrives to attend a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on Nov. 19, 2024, in Brownsville, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

"There is no apple," he said. "It's beyond repair."

The agency's website was taken down Saturday.

Musk noted that the more he has gotten to know Trump, the more he likes the president.

"Frankly, I love the guy. He's great," the business tycoon said of the commander in chief.

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President Donald Trump talks to reporters after signing an executive order, "Unleashing prosperity through deregulation," in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Musk has been excoriating USAID in posts on X.

"USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die," he tweeted.

"USAID was a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America," he asserted.

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The United States Agency for International Development logo is seen in Virginia on Feb. 21, 2023 (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Atul Gawande, who served as head of global health at USAID for three years under President Biden's administration, lamented Musk's move in an interview with Fox News Digital.

"This is a gift to our enemies and competitors. This pause is not a pause. It’s the destruction of the agency," Gawande said. "Two weeks ago I was combating diseases. We had 21 serious outbreaks at the time worldwide. Three are serious now: an Ebola outbreak in the capital of Uganda. Bird flu has broken out in 49 countries. Our efforts to contain them have all been shut down."

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Gawande went on to say that USAID's current employees are being treated with "enormous disrespect and fear." Musk's DOGE teams also removed a USAID Memorial Wall that honored employees who were killed overseas while carrying out their duties, he said.

"The top 3 layers of experienced employees have been removed. All contract employees have been or will be terminated…2/3 of the malaria staff, child immunization experts. This kills our capacity. It’s insane to break this. It’s cruel and it does our country enormous damage," he added.