Andrew Natsios, a Republican who served under George W. Bush, knocked the pair for pushing "a lot of garbage" in their efforts to gut the agency.

Mike Benz appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast in late December to discuss USAID, spurring Musk’s first mention of the agency.

Killing USAID by contrast is, as experts have noted, a gift to Russia and China. It's a gift to Russia because the current largest line item the USAID budget goes to Ukraine, which has been as devastated by the Russian invasion as many of those European countries were by the Nazis in 1945.