The End of USAID
By 
I have to say that the shuttering of USAID is about as demoralizing to me as anything that happened under Trump 45, not least because I know folks personally who are going to lose their jobs, and I know folks personally who wouldn’t be alive if USAID didn’t exist. Here’s a good account of how Musk found himself at the center of a conspiratorial cabal of right wing cranks:
Most of Musk’s more than 160 posts about USAID have been responses to a handful of small but influential verified accounts, many of them using pseudonyms. The most popular — including posts from Wall Street Apes, Kanekoa the Great, Chief Nerd and Autism Capital — have been viewed hundreds of millions of times, amplified by Musk and his 216 million followers, according to X metrics. As the theories spread, they are repackaged, and in many cases added upon, to further the claims.
A review of the accounts’ profiles reveals how a lengthy crusade to paint USAID as a malevolent force built up in recent years in relatively fringe internet circles, only to be suddenly elevated and acted upon by Musk. The pattern is similar to one that played out with the so-called Twitter Files in 2022, when selectively framed narratives and out-of-context internal documents were weaponized to fuel allegations of a grand government censorship conspiracy. And it is one likely to continue under Trump and Musk, who have histories of trafficking in falsehoods.
Most of USAID’s budget goes to grants for specific development projects, including at Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision, World Relief, Catholic Relief Services, and many other faith-based groups. It supports local Christian health clinics in Malawi and groups providing orphan care.
In Kenya, PCEA Chogoria Hospital, a historic mission hospital now run by Kenyan churches, provides comprehensive health care to HIV patients through support from USAID. On January 24 the hospital received a stop-work order for that care and has had no indication of a return of funding despite Rubio’s promises that life-saving HIV care could continue.
The hospital has 3,162 HIV patients in that USAID-funded program, and 42 staff members caring for those patients. Chogoria had a plan to gradually take on the funding obligation of HIV patients itself over the next three years.
But this is a good thread on what might still be saved, and is worth reading in its entirety.