Billionaire and government efficiency chief Elon Musk has repeatedly spread baseless or outright false claims about the gutted U.S. Agency for International Development on X, including an unsupported claim the agency was a form “money laundering” and that it paid celebrities millions to visit Ukraine.
Hoaxes about USAID have spread quickly on social media as the Trump administration guts the agency. ... [+]
Many false and misleading claims about USAID spending practices have spread quickly on X, propped up by billionaires including Musk and Bill Ackman.
There’s no evidence to suggest USAID has engaged in money laundering. On Saturday afternoon, Musk reposted a claim on X that suggested USAID was a “form of money laundering tax payers money into far-left organizations,” adding: “Absolutely,” though neither poster offered sources or factual information. Although Republicans have criticized the organization for alleged wasteful spending, there’s no evidence that USAID was engaging in criminal behavior to support left-wing organizations.
No. Several viral posts on X claimed Chelsea Clinton raked in a large $84 million sum from USAID—but the reference to Clinton actually refers to her family’s Clinton Foundation, and the only Clinton-related organization that has received USAID money is the Clinton Health Access Initiative, to which USAID gave $7.5 million in 2019, according to USASpending.gov.The grant given to the Clinton Health Access Initiative was used to fund health services in Zambia between 2019 and 2021, and Chelsea Clinton receives no compensation as a board member, including during the years the grant money was used, according to IRS documents.
There is no evidence USAID paid celebrities to visit Ukraine. Several viral social media posts accused USAID of paying Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn and Orlando Bloom to travel to Ukraine and take pictures with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Forbes has reached out to Stiller, Jolie, Penn and Bloom for comment). Stiller called the claims “totally false” and “untrue” in a post on X, clarifying he self-funded his trip to Ukraine and has not received money from USAID, and Penn’s litigation attorney Mathew Rosengart told Forbes the claims are “completely false,” noting Penn self-funded his visit and threatening to take legal action if the “defamatory statements continue.” Musk amplified these false claims on X, reposting a video that was fabricated to look like it had been reported by E! News (E! News denied in a statement to AFP that it created the video).
No. Musk reposted an unproven claim that USAID funded research by scientific nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance that led to the creation of COVID-19. Although USAID and other government agencies have given it funds, and some of EcoHealth Alliance’s methods are controversial, the group has previously said the viruses it studied were not similar enough to COVID-19 to have been related to the start of the pandemic.
Yes—but for subscriptions, not USAID grants. Musk, Trump and other right-wing figures have spread false claims that USAID gave the news outlet Politico millions of dollars, which Trump baselessly claimed was to write “good stories about the Democrats,” suggesting this could be the “biggest scandal” in history. But Politico never received any donations from USAID, according to funding records on USASpending.gov and a statement from the company. USAID spent $44,000 between 2023 and 2024 on subscriptions to Politico Pro, which the news outlet describes as “a professional subscription service used by companies, organizations, and, yes, some government agencies,” and is targeted to specialized users in the private sector who want to track legislation, policy and news (subscriptions reportedly start at about $10,000). Politico said it has never received any government subsidies or grants, and clarified USAID’s purchase was a “transaction,” not “funding.” Conspiracies about Politico being funded by USAID spread after a “technical error” caused paychecks for Politico staff to be delayed earlier this week, leading some X users to jump to the false conclusion that USAID, which was gutted before the payroll issue, must have been funding the outlet.
Other news outlets faced similar hoaxes as Politico, as X users made misleading—and in some cases, outright false—claims about payments by USAID to media companies. Like Politico, some of these transactions were payments for subscriptions by government agencies—not grants or subsidies. The New York Times said it had not received any grants, and clarified the federal funds it received were “payments for subscriptions that government offices and agencies have purchased to better understand the world.” Reuters and the Associated Press also said they have not received government grants, and agencies had purchased subscriptions instead. USAID and other government agencies have funded some global media organizations, but not many of the big-name outlets targeted on X. The BBC said in a statement its charity arm supporting local media worldwide, BBC Media Action, received about 8% of its income from the U.S. government between 2023 and 2024, but the charity is wholly separate from BBC News, which did not receive any funding. Federal records show USAID made a $1.9 million donation to the BBC’s media charity—not BBC News—to support its efforts in India. The rumors USAID funded BBC News were boosted by Musk and billionaire Marc Andreessen in a now-deleted tweet. USAID’s funding efforts have supported other journalism outfits in countries with limited democracy or free press, including media in Ukraine and Russia as well as the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which supports corruption reporting worldwide.
Various rumors that DOGE identified millions in U.S. spending on condoms in Gaza and the Middle East have spread with no evidence. Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed last week USAID spent $50 million on condoms in Gaza. Leavitt may have been referring to USAID grants issued to the International Medical Corps, a group that provides aid to victims of war, totaling more than $100 million, in which “family planning programming,” including contraceptives, were included, which is typical for aid packages to developing countries, the Associated Press reported. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., claimed in a CNN interview Thursday that USAID spent $15 million on condoms for the Taliban, echoing a claim made earlier this week by Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla. The Atlantic reported USAID had in the past funded condoms for Afghan citizens, not for the Taliban (which controls the Afghan government), but CNN reported the agency did not fund any condoms for the entire Middle East during the three previous fiscal years. In posts on X, Musk said the United States should “NOT be sending US taxpayer money to buy condoms for foreigners,” and baselessly claimed money for contraceptives “ended up in the pockets [of] Hamas.”
No. Leavitt, and several viral posts on X, claimed USAID spent thousands on a “transgender opera in Colombia”—and although the government did give a grant to a Colombian university to increase transgender representation in opera, it wasn’t USAID. The State Department gave $25,000 to the Universidad De Los Andes in Bogotá for that purpose in 2021. Similarly, the State Department—not USAID—gave $70,000 in 2022 to fund a musical in Ireland that promoted “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.”
No. USAID announced a $6 million payment to Egypt to “increase educational opportunities and strengthen the livelihoods of the people of North Sinai”—not to fund tourism, as the White House claimed. The White House’s fact sheet links to a USAID announcement that does not mention tourism at all and was issued in 2019—during Trump’s first administration.
Yes. USAID did provide funding for several programs that have been slammed by Republicans. USAID gave $1.5 million in 2022 to “advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities” and to increase employment opportunities for LGBTQ Serbians. The payment was slammed by Leavitt and several Republican members of Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. The White House also criticized a $2 million payment by USAID for “sex changes” in Guatemala—which is not true. But USAID did make a $2 million payment to “strengthen trans-led organizations” and “gender-affirming health care” in Guatemala, though gender-affirming care encompasses more than surgeries and it’s unclear what medical care the grant was used for.