Elon Musk, Deliverer of Chaos
Terry H. Schwadron
Feb. 4, 2025
Even for those who think Donald Trump’s erratic, hasty avalanche or unilateral moves to undercut government is somehow within bounds, the idea that private citizen Elon Musk is issuing orders to shut USAID our main humanitarian international aid program, must come as a slap.
It’s one thing to review foreign aid, it’s another when the heavy-handedness is from a private citizen who happens to be the world’s richest man rather than from authorized government officials. Amid power plays on spending, tariffs and America’s role, the last thought seems to be about the starving.
Rather than just grabbing power, Musk says he is acting on a nod from Trump himself not just to look at spending. Still, his reasoning to shut the agency came when its security people blocked access for his right non-cleared representatives to have immediate access to that agency’s classified documents. So Musk told U.S. Agency for International Development workers to stay home, put its top security people on administrative leave, and announced that the program created by Congress, funded by Congress, was officially shut — adding that the agency is guilty of unspecified criminal acts.
Does this sound rational or more a show of power?
Under his non-governmental “Department of Government Efficiencies” role, Musk authored the “fork in the road” memo last week to two million federal employees, giving them two weeks to resign before he, Musk, starts firing them — despite Civil Service protections, unions and contracts. Musk has forced out an FAA head who had problems with his own space companies and forced out a longtime Treasury official who declined Musk access — which he now has — to the computers that write every federal check and to personal information of federal workers in at least four overarching agencies.
Musk is unelected, unconfirmed, and unauthorized in any official capacity and his assumed role as chief budget-cutter — no, government undercutter — is suffused with personal and professional conflicts of interest. Yet we’re hearing nothing from the Right about bringing more than his share of disorder, presumably because it is what they want, even at the cost of their own power in government.
At minimum, amid legal challenges and confusions about on again-off-again tariff announcements for goods from Mexico, Canada and China and belligerence from Trump, it feels that our economic and nationalistic policies are untethered, flapping, and untrustworthy. Tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods were called off — delayed, really — with offers from both about hardening borders to migrants and fentanyl that largely follow actions already promised.
Confusion Over ‘Frozen’ Spending
All this was playing out as Trump orders froze all federal spending on loans and grants, sending enough confusion through the country to force a White House rollback and State Department policies that insisted humanitarian programs will be maintained. But then Musk shuts USAID, the agency that delivers the aid to nonprofits globally.
In Washington, U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan issued restraining order against the administration because it had not complied with another judge who said that a federal spending freeze — a Musk initiative — must be halted. The two-page memo ordering that freeze was rescinded last week, but the administration said it would pursue the freeze in other ways.
After another tumultuous 24 hours in which key Republicans in Congress said they really didn’t care who oversees USAID, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in El Salvador that he and State were taking it over to assure that records were open to the Trump administration. He said that agency officials had decided “that they’re somehow a global charity separate from the national interest or taxpayer dollars.” It was unclear what aid might continue to flow to foreign countries.
With no one besides Trump giving Musk authority to hire and fire or unfettered access to classified documents and computers with personal information on millions of federal employees, the question about Musk’s powers is prompting talk, but little action to rein him in. Hasn’t unauthorized traipsing through classified information been considered among our most serious offenses? Where are the Republican majorities in Congress?
Indeed, Ed Martin, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney in Washington, promised unspecified legal action against anyone who “threatens” employees of Musk’s DOGE efforts — a move that seems to have the view of things backward.
The Effects
It takes no imagination to understand that the consequences of shutting USAID will be on the starving and sick being served by the agency. The shutdown will cut off needed avenues of foreign information coming from the aid groups on the ground, and will serve as an invitation to China, Russia and others who want to expand their global footprint. The reputation of this country will take a hit.
So, there are questions about the substance of these shutdowns and freezes as well as about process and power.
What aid is Rubio allowing under the name of America First while Musk, apparently with Trump’s approval, is killing the same programs? What are all those Republican congressmen who jumped up and down constantly over the power of Congress to demand answers from the last administration doing to rein in an out-of-control Musk, whose political money and influence with Trump they seem to fear? What in America First is about handing influence to foes? If you are feeding the hungry or seeking to help a mom deliver a kid in one of the myriad war zones around the globe, can anyone trust that you will be there next week?
Clearly, some of the tumult still will result in challenges in court, along with all the immigration, environmental, and employee policy disputes. Whatever the rulings, it will be months or years of irreparable damage before they are resolved.
Of course, the chaos is the point, even more than any would-be reformation of foreign aid spending goals. In an environment in which no official word or no agency policy can be trusted, Donald Trump’s voice — through his own mouth or through Elon Musk’s — can cut through as the authoritative and authoritarian statement. Facts are fungible, decisions can be as easily reversed as made, enemies are for investigating and prosecuting while friends are for benefitting from Trump/Musk statements.
##