USAID officials at loggerheads with Elon Musk's DOGE over system access, sent on leave

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was at loggerheads with senior security staff at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) after the agency refused to allow the DOGE team to access classified systems.

The members of the senior security staff were put on leave, Bloomberg reported, as operations of the relief agency appeared largely paralysed.

The security officials contended that the DOGE staff lacked the clearances required to see the information, making them legally obligated to deny access.

The agency’s website was taken offline over the weekend and last week, more than 50 senior officials at USAID’s Washington office, the majority of the agency’s senior career leadership, were recently put on administrative leave. A network error or blank page was encountered when attempting to access the site, usaid.gov, across various countries and devices.

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the USAID has been run “by a bunch of radical lunatics and we’re getting them out.”

The action comes amid a relentless attack from Musk on Saturday and Sunday aimed at USAID. At one point he accused it of funding bioweapon research “including COVID-19.” At another, he said it was “a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.”

The broadsides from Trump and Musk — who called it a “criminal organisation” earlier in the day — were the latest in a stunning series of attacks on USAID that left US-funded foreign assistance overseas all but paralyzed in recent days. It was also shaping up as a test of Trump’s power, with Musk in a supporting role, to hobble an agency that was codified by Congress in 1998.

Elon Musk’s DOGE says it did nothing wrong

Elon Musk’s DOGE team pushed back against the idea that they had done anything wrong at USAID. According to DOGE member Katie Miller, no classified material was accessed without proper security clearance.

“No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” Miller wrote on X.

Miller, who was the Communications Director to Vice President Mike Pence during Trump’s first term, was tapped for the role in December last year.

The fast-moving developments follow an executive order by Trump last month to halt and reevaluate US foreign aid. Billions of dollars in US assistance that are typically coordinated by the independent agency were frozen, and several senior officials suspended.

That order left many aid recipients, especially across Africa and in Ukraine, scrambling. The agency provides support for everything from humanitarian projects to health initiatives to disaster relief.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has issued a waiver for certain “life-saving humanitarian assistance” as a three-month review is carried out to determine which of the thousands of US foreign aid projects align with Trump’s vision. But billions of dollars in aid remain halted.