Elon Musk's DOGE team began efforts to "obliterate USAID" after State Department officials discovered a $153 million expenditure considered irregular. Pete Marocco, who was recently appointed by President Donald Trump as Director of the Department of Foreign Aid under the Department of State, on January 23 expressed anger when reviewing documents related to the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Morocco was then planning to implement the 90-day freeze on foreign aid issued by Mr. Trump on his first day in office. Marocco discovered that USAID recently paid $153 million for a series of expenses. The director of the USAID executive department from the US State Department demanded to know why the money was transferred despite the President's freeze order, according to five sources familiar with the matter.
Morocco at the same time drafted a diplomatic cable, scheduled to be sent the next day, stating that even current foreign aid funds must be frozen for at least three months pending review.
At meetings over the next 24 hours, USAID officials tried to explain the situation. They pointed out that the $153 million was used to pay for many items, such as employee salaries and money owed to outside contractors for completed work. In the view of USAID officials, these payments do not violate the foreign aid freeze issued by President Trump. But Morocco is not convinced. On the morning of January 27, he arrived at USAID headquarters with more than 10 people, most of whom were representatives from the Department of Government Performance (DOGE), an agency run by technology billionaire Elon Musk to streamline the apparatus and cut federal spending. USAID has since been in the sights of Musk and President Trump.
In the days that followed, Morocco and DOGE drastically streamlined the decades-old aid agency, which has an annual budget of more than $40 billion and has long served as America's main tool for disbursing humanitarian aid abroad and building soft power. All but about 600 of USAID's more than 10,000 employees worldwide were suspended. However, a federal judge ordered to block some of President Trump's team's efforts to shrink USAID, including temporarily suspending thousands of employees. Experts say USAID is especially vulnerable in the current US political context. Foreign aid is not an issue that tends to resonate strongly with voters, and its humanitarian mission does not directly affect Americans.