The world’s richest man continues to claim his destruction of USAID one year ago last week hasn’t caused a single death worldwide, but data from many reliable sources tell another story entirely.
On Feb. 3, 2025, Elon Musk posted on his X platform: “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.”
This was in the heady days of his role leading DOGE on behalf of newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. Yet despite reams of evidence to the contrary, Musk to this day continues to insist his actions did not kill anyone.
On Sunday, June 28, this year, Musk posted on X his assertion that those who talk about deaths due to the closure of USAID “cannot cite a single name of someone who died out of the ‘millions’ they falsely claim have died. Not a single name!”
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof responded with four names, including an 8-year-old girl.
Musk responded by calling Kristof “an utter piece of shit and a liar.”
Elon Musk, left, receives a chainsaw from Argentina’s President Javier Milei as they speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
None of this is new behavior from Musk, the world’s first trillionaire, who took a mindless hatchet to the federal government soon after Trump returned to the White House. In March last year, amid the furor, Musk insisted, “No one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding.”
What earlier was billed as a “brief pause” has turned into a permanent void.
Even Bill Gates has accused Musk of “killing the world’s poorest children” and of taking steps “that over time will kill over a million children,” Forbes reported.
Musk responded, “Gates is a huge liar.”
What earlier was billed as a “brief pause” has turned into a permanent void.
On Monday, June 29, Musk posted on X: “Deaths in Africa DECREASED after USAID funding was cut, because they’re no longer able to push for violent revolution to install leftist regimes!”
There is no evidence to support that claim. But there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary:
- Boston University traced and documented 762,000 deaths worldwide as of February 2026. That includes 500,000 children.
- Harvard’s H. Chan School of Public Health reported hundreds of thousands of deaths from untreated illnesses, with the largest mortality spikes resulting from halted support for HIV/AIDS treatments, pediatric pneumonia, malaria and tuberculosis.
- Zimbabwe’s health ministry reported a 180% year-over-year increase in malaria cases through the first four months of 2025 and a 218% surge in malaria-related deaths.
- The Lancet, a medical journal, estimates USAID cuts will cause the deaths of 9.4 million people by 2030.
Oxfam America President Abby Maxma said: “We have run out of words to describe the depths of suffering we have witnessed after President Trump took a sledgehammer to U.S. humanitarian assistance and the entire global aid system. We are seeing years of progress unravel, and more children suffer and die preventable deaths because of these cuts.”
Oxfam and other international aid groups have detailed the myriad ways in which Musk’s actions have imperiled health and life across the globe. Yet he refuses to acknowledge that reality.
Related:
DOGE didn’t even know what USAID did, new book contends
243,000 more children died last year due to Trump’s tactics
Trump’s policy on track to kill 14 million people, Bread for the World leader warns