WASHINGTON — Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters on Monday, according to a notice distributed to them, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.
USAID staffers said they also tracked more than 600 employees who reported being locked out of the agency’s computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails saying that “at the direction of Agency leadership” the headquarters building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.”
Two government employees who tried to gain access to the USAID offices in the building on Monday morning said they were turned away by security guards, who told them the offices were open but people could not go in. Later in the morning, uniformed Department of Homeland Security officers blocked the lobby of the USAID’s headquarters using yellow tape with the words “do not cross.”
The developments come after Musk, who’s leading an extraordinary civilian review of the federal government with the Republican president’s agreement, said early Monday that he had spoken with Trump about the six-decade U.S. aid and development agency and “he agreed we should shut it down.”
“It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said in a live session on X Spaces early Monday. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”
“We’re shutting it down,” he said.
The white USAID flag still flew on the empty plaza in front of the agency headquarters Monday morning. A State Department staffer stood in front, and he said he just wanted to pay his respects. Staffers said employees earlier Monday had been able to reach other parts of the agency to clear personal belongings from their offices.
Musk, Trump and some Republican lawmakers have targeted the U.S. aid and development agency, which oversees humanitarian, development and security programs in some 120 countries, in increasingly strident terms, accusing it of promoting liberal causes.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams, a current and a former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, earlier carried out a similar operation at the Treasury Department, gaining access to sensitive information including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. The Washington Post reported that a senior Treasury official had resigned over Musk’s team accessing sensitive information.
Democratic lawmakers have protested the moves, saying Trump lacks constitutional authority to shut down USAID without congressional approval and decrying Musk’s accessing sensitive government-held information through his Trump-sanctioned inspections of federal government agencies and programs.
USAID, whose website vanished Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government and many of its programs.
“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out,” Trump said to reporters about USAID on Sunday night.
Musk’s and Trump’s comments came with Secretary of State Marco Rubio out of the country, in Central America, on his first trip abroad in office. Rubio has not spoken publicly about any plans to shut down USAID.
The Trump administration and Rubio have imposed an unprecedented freeze on foreign assistance that has shut down much of USAID’s aid programs worldwide — compelling thousands of layoffs by aid organizations — and ordered furloughs and leaves that have gutted the agency’s leadership and staff in Washington..
Peter Marocco, a returning political appointee from Trump’s first term, was a leader in enforcing the shutdown. USAID staffers say they believe that agency outsiders with visitors’ badges asking questions of employees inside the Washington headquarters are members of Musk’s DOGE team.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a post on Sunday that Trump was allowing Musk to access people’s personal information and shut down government funding.
“We must do everything in our power to push back and protect people from harm,” the Massachusetts senator said, without giving details.
Story by Ellen Knickmeyer and Fatima Hussein. Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
