Washington Overnight, U.S. Agency for International Development staff in the nation’s capital were instructed to work from home on Monday instead of reporting to work.
In an email issued to staff overnight, it stated, “At the direction of Agency leadership, the USAID headquarters at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C. will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, February 3, 2025,” according to a copy read by NBC News.
Agency staff who typically work at USAID’s headquarters “will work remotely tomorrow,” according to the message, with the exception of those who carry out necessary on-site and building maintenance tasks. “Further guidance will be forthcoming,” it continued.
Elon Musk, a tech billionaire who has been closely advising President Donald Trump since being appointed to head his Department of Government Efficiency, stated in the early hours of Monday that he and the president were in the process of closing down USAID. The email did not specify the reason for the work-from-home directive.
According to more than a dozen current and former officials and people familiar with the talks, officials in the Trump administration are actively contemplating transferring USAID to the State Department. USAID’s website no longer loads on the internet as of Monday, displaying the error message “its server IP address cannot be found.”
Since its founding by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, USAID has served as the principal foreign development and humanitarian agency of the U.S. government.
Approximately two-thirds of the agency’s 10,000+ employees serve abroad, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report. Over the past few years, USAID “provided significant humanitarian, development, and economic support to Ukraine and countries affected by Russia s war in Ukraine, as well as humanitarian assistance in Gaza and elsewhere,” according to the report.
As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, an unofficial agency, Musk has been spearheading Trump’s drive to reduce the federal government’s bureaucracy.
The director of security for USAID and his deputy were placed on administrative leave on Saturday for attempting to prevent DOGE employees from using the agency’s protected systems.
One USAID official told NBC News that nobody feels comfortable going anywhere close to the Ronald Reagan building. Elon Musk recently referred to us as a criminal enterprise. Our chief of security was led away. We are aware that DOGE is monitoring us.
Musk claimed that Trump was in favor of closing down USAID when he announced on Monday that he was working to do so.
“I went over [it] with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said of the president’s involvement with USAID. In fact, I asked him several times, “Are you certain?” Musk went on to say that Trump said, “Yes.”