Even Trump’s Chief of Staff Was ‘Horrified’ by Elon Musk’s Deadly Cuts to USAID

Wells says she called Musk on the carpet. “You can’t just keep people out of their offices,” she remembers telling him. Initially, Wells did not realize the impact that USAID’s program cuts would have on humanitarian aid. “I didn’t know much about the size of the grants they offer.” But as immunization operations stop in Africa, lives will be lost. She soon received frantic calls from relief agency heads and former government officials with the dire message that thousands of people’s lives were in the balance.

“So Marco is on his way to Panama,” Wells continued. “We called him and said, ‘You’ve been confirmed to the Senate. You’re going to have to essentially be the custodian of USAID.'” “Okay,” he says. But Musk kept going full steam ahead, with no brakes. “Elon’s position is you have to get it done fast,” Wiles said. “If you’re an incrementalist, you can’t get your rocket to the moon.” “With this attitude, you will break some of China. But no reasonable person could think that the USAID operation was a good operation. No one.”