Tech billionaire Elon Musk is being schooled about the impacts of his foreign aid cuts that one reporter says have already killed people.
When he came into office, President Donald Trump created the "Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)" by executive order and tasked Musk with the responsibility. That initiative has been behind the upheaval and dismantling of government agencies. Websites, grants, programs, and employees have been cut or frozen under the promise that Trump will save taxpayers trillions.
"No one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding,” Musk wrote on X. "No one.”
ALSO READ: The new guy in charge of USAID doesn't believe in foreign aid
New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof, who visited South Sudan and Nairobi, Kenya, spoke to MSNBC on Wednesday morning about his bombshell report on the impact of the foreign aid cuts on communities there.
Kristof's piece explained that some "have already died" due to Trump and Musk's cuts.
He said, "It's great" that a judge has restored email access to USAID employees who were put on administrative leave, but that isn't enough.
"This doesn't actually reverse the cancellation of programs that were keeping people alive," said Kristof. "And so, at the end of the day, kids in places like South Sudan are still dying, still not getting their nutritional support."
He specifically recalled visiting a maternity clinic in Sudan, where maternity care has not traditionally existed.
He went to the clinic and began asking questions, and the patients began thinking he was responsible for the clinic.
"And everybody is thanking me. They're thanking America for its generosity. They're saying that women are safe here now. A woman who was then in labor wants to name her baby after me," he continued.
He said they don't know that the clinic is about to close due to the cuts from the Trump administration.
"And those women, again, are going to be bleeding to death in the dust there," he told MSNBC. "I mean, that's just, you know, when you see in front of you these pregnant women who were now were going to be left to to die in childbirth. It just breaks your heart."
He pointed out that Americans celebrate a firefighter who rescues a child. However, "American taxpayers have been doing that on a huge scale with USAID."
"And this was a kind of heroic thing that the U.S. had done. But that just ended in January," he explained.
See the interview below or at the link.