Employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development were told overnight not to report to work on Monday because its Washington, D.C., headquarters would be closed, fueling fears that the already-hobbled agency would soon be shuttered for good.
The unusual staffwide directive was emailed out around 12:45 a.m. Eastern time, shortly after Elon Musk said that he and President Trump had agreed that the government’s lead humanitarian aid agency should be dissolved. Employees said the main offices are rarely shut to them on weekdays.
Mr. Musk’s announcement, during a live event he hosted on X, the social media platform he owns, exacerbated the panic that had already taken hold among agency employees. Many have been bracing for a shutdown since representatives of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an ad hoc task force housed on the White House grounds, entered agency headquarters last week.
Two top security officials were put on administrative leave for attempting to refuse those representative access to internal systems, including a secure space where classified materials were housed.
By Monday, hundreds of U.S.A.I.D. employees were locked out of their email accounts, and contractors as well as regular staff discovered they could no longer access their official records, according to three employees with knowledge of the changes. In Washington, D.C., a throng of U.S.A.I.D. employees gathered outside the agency’s headquarters at the Ronald Reagan Building, a few blocks away from the White House.
The email directing employees not to show up to agency’s headquarters was from Gavin Kliger and sent from an agency server, although Mr. Kliger is said to be engineer on Mr. Musk’s task force. Mr. Kliger did not response to requests for comment.
Foreign assistance distributed by the agency, which supports health services, disaster relief, anti-poverty efforts and a range of other programs, makes up less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
Mr. Musk said overnight that he and Mr. Trump were in full agreement that the agency should be shut down.
“I actually checked with him a few times,” Mr. Musk said. “I said, ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes.’ So we’re shutting it down.”
Shortly after his event ended, Mr. Musk seemed to celebrate, posting: “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
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