By Justin Choi

The U.S. Agency for International Development’s headquarters in Washington was closed on Monday morning after President Donald Trump and Elon Musk agreed to shut the agency. This comes after the USAID website vanished on Saturday without any sort of explanation.

Musk held a live session on X Spaces earlier Monday morning and said that the president had agreed to shut down the agency. He claimed that the agency is “just a ball of worms,” and that “you’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing.”

The previous night, President Trump told reporters,” It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics.” 

USAID workers also received an email Monday telling them to not come to work. 

Shortly after, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he will be the acting administrator for USAID. In a letter to lawmakers Monday, he told them that he would be delegating the role of acting administrator to Pete Morocco, who served at USAID during President Trump’s first term.

The president’s opposition to USAID aligns with his “America First” policy. He has blasted USAID as being wasteful and misusing American taxpayer money. Along with Musk, who is leading the Department of Government Efficiency, the president strongly believes that USAID is an agency that is inefficient.