Killing USAID by contrast is, as experts have noted, a gift to Russia and China. It's a gift to Russia because the current largest line item the USAID budget goes to Ukraine, which has been as devastated by the Russian invasion as many of those European countries were by the Nazis in 1945.

The billionaire said the agency was being shut down hours after President Donald Trump said it was being run by "a bunch of radical lunatics."

Musk, who last year said “things that inhibit freedom of exchange or distort the market are not good,” became $12 billion poorer Monday.

Elon Musk's control of a federal payment system is raising concerns about funding for programs like Social Security and the safety of personal data.

A lawsuit filed Monday seeks to halt the ‘unlawful disclosure of information,’ including Treasury data on Americans’ taxes and Social Security, to DOGE staff. This week, President Trump adviser Elon Musk’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seems to have gained full access to the Department of Treasury’s payments systems responsible for processing trillions of dollars of spending,