Gathered outside the headquarters of the US Agency for International Development in downtown Washington, DC, on Monday, a fiery group of congressional Democrats debuted what felt like a new—and potent—message: Elon Musk is acting as an unqualified shadow president, and he’s breaking the law along the way.
The unelected South African tech billionaire announced Monday that he and Trump were shutting down USAID, which distributes billions of dollars annually in international humanitarian aid to approximately 130 countries—the top recipient in fiscal year 2023 was Ukraine—and employs more than 10,0o0 people, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Established by an executive order signed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the agency “provides assistance to strategically important countries and countries in conflict; leads U.S. efforts to alleviate poverty, disease, and humanitarian need; and assists U.S. commercial interests by supporting developing countries’ economic growth and building countries’ capacity to participate in world trade,” the CRS states. To Musk, though, it’s a “criminal organization” and “radical-left political psy op.“
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted on X early Monday. “Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.”
Hundreds of USAID staffers were reportedly laid off last week following Trump’s executive order, issued on Inauguration Day, ordering a 90-day freeze on foreign aid. Over the weekend, two top USAID security leaders were reportedly put on administrative leave after trying to stop DOGE staffers from accessing the agency’s secure systems. Ten Democratic senators from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in a letter Sunday to newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio that “security guards present at the facility were threatened when they raised questions” about DOGE staffers trying to gain entry.
Three US officials told CBS News earlier that USAID will be merged into the State Department and will sustain significant cuts to the workforce, but that it will maintain a humanitarian function. ABC News first reported that Rubio is now its acting administrator. In the Oval Office, President Trump claimed of the agency and its workforce: “I love the concept, but they turned out to be radical left lunatics.” Staffers at the agency were reportedly instructed to stay home on Monday, and its website is down.
In response to all this, high-ranking congressional Democrats staged a last-minute news conference to draw attention to the agency’s critical work and what they called Musk’s “crime” in trying to dismantle it. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) summed up the utter mess of the past several days in his opening remarks: “Musk and his band of unelected acolytes at DOGE have locked out USAID employees from their offices, improperly accessed highly classified information, purged the agency of its nonpartisan leadership and thrown the agency into chaos through a concerted campaign of harassment and intimidation of its employees.” Beyer alleged that Musk and his acolytes’ actions “severely harm our national security”; “put thousands of children around the world at immediate risk of starvation, disease, and death”; and sideline “some of our finest civil servants who work tirelessly every day to make the world a better place.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) called closing the agency “an absolute gift to our adversaries—to Russia, to China, to Iran, and others, because AID is an essential instrument of US foreign policy and US national security policy.” He pointed to a post on X from former Russian president and “Putin stooge” Dmitry Medvedev, who called the decision to shutter USAID a “smart move by @elonmusk.”
“Elon Musk may get to be dictator of Tesla, and he may try to play dictator here in Washington, D.C., but he doesn’t get to shut down [USAID],” Van Hollen said, adding that the attempt to shutter the agency was “plain illegal” and that doing so would take an act of Congress.
Sen. @ChrisVanHollen: "Trying to shut down the Agency for International Development by executive order is plain illegal." pic.twitter.com/aXbkrFIGhF
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 3, 2025
“We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk,” shouted Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), to cheers, “and that’s going to become real clear.”
On the heels of a New York Times report published Sunday that was based on interviews with more than 50 Democratic leaders and alleged that the party was struggling to land on a coherent message, Monday’s news conference seemed remarkably unified in its focus around the dangers of Musk as shadow president and Trump’s isolationist, “America First” ethos. And given that a Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed that most registered voters—53 percent—disapprove of Musk’s role in the Trump administration, and a January Associated Press-National Opinion Research Center poll found that a majority of Americans don’t want Trump relying on billionaires or family members for policy advice, congressional Democrats may be onto something in making Musk a top target.
The lawmakers also made sure to point out the litany of illegal activities Trump and Musk have undertaken in only—checks notes—two weeks in office. (See also: Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, which a federal judge temporarily blocked, as my colleague Isabela Dias reported, as well as his effort to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding, which two other federal judges also temporarily blocked. And if Musk uses the access his team at DOGE was reportedly recently granted to the Treasury’s payments system to control government spending, that would also be illegal, as my colleague Pema Levy covered Sunday.)
The Monday press conference was not the only resistance Democratic lawmakers mounted to Musk’s latest moves. They also tried to enter the USAID headquarters on Monday, only to have federal law enforcement officials block their entry.
.@SenatorAndyKim at USAID: "I talked to the security guard just in there. He said he has been given specific orders to prevent employees of USAID from entering the building today. I just find that to be absolutely ridiculous. This is no way to govern." pic.twitter.com/ixdFDLqGps
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 3, 2025
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) also said to the Wall Street Journal that he would put a “blanket hold” on all of Trump’s Cabinet nominees until the agency is back up and running. “I will do maximal delays until this is resolved,” Schatz told the newspaper.
