DOGE shut down USAID, established by JFK in 1961. Before being shut down, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was the larges…

DOGE shut down USAID, established by JFK in 1961. Before being shut down, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid worldwide. Elon Musk said "USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple you just need to get rid of the whole thing. That’s why it’s got to go. It’s beyond repair,” He later posted, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.” Marco Rubio shut down 83% of USAID programs/ A peer reviewed study* the Lancet provided a thorough counterfactual study of the impact of USAID over the preceding 21 years and a "what if" study examining the impact of shutdown to 2030. The study demonstrates that Elon Musk's saying of USAID "there is no apple" was just "trash talk." Many of Musk's derogatory claims about USAID have been disproven. Musk reposted that it was funding condoms for "gay Hamas" in Gaza. It turned out to be HIV/AIDS prevention for a place by the same name in Mozambique. Musk posted that USAID was funding BBC. It turned out to be it was funding BBC Media Action, a charity, not the broadcaster. BBC is funded by licenses. This finding indicates that 91,839,663 all-age deaths, including 30,391,980 in children younger than 5 years, were prevented by USAID funding over the 21-year study period. USAID funding was associated with a 65% reduction in mortality from HIV/AIDS (representing 25·5 million deaths), 51% from malaria (8·0 million deaths), and 50% from neglected tropical diseases (8·9 million deaths). Significant decreases were also observed in mortality from tuberculosis, nutritional deficiencies, diarrhoeal diseases, lower respiratory infections, and maternal and perinatal conditions. Forecasting models predicted that the current steep funding cuts could result in more than 14,051,750 additional all-age deaths, including 4,537,157 in children younger than age 5 years, by 2030. The 14,051,750 additional deaths expected to result from shutdown of USAID by 2030 represents 2.34 times the 6,000,000 deaths in the Holocaust. * Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAIDinterventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis Daniella Medeiros Cavalcanti, Lucas de Oliveira Ferreira de Sales, Andrea Ferreira da Silva, Elisa Landin Basterra, Daiana Pena, Caterina Monti, Gonzalo Barreix, Natanael J Silva, Paula Vaz, Francisco Saute, Gonzalo Fanjul, Quique Bassat, Denise Naniche, James Macinko, Davide Rasella. Lancet, June 30, 2025 I warned about the consequences of DOGE and the suspension of USAID from day one; yet, my voice was drowned out by censorship and the media propaganda promoted by Elon Musk—claiming USAID funds terrorism, providing zero evidence—in order to divert USAID funding to his companies. …

Source: Yann LeCun (X) | 2026-07-07