Destruction of world’s largest humanitarian programme was done without formal authority or official oversight, former USAID employees claim
Elon Musk, leader of the Trump administration’s now-disbanded Department of Government Efficiency, must sit for depositions along with senior State Department officials over their role in dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Pointing to findings that Musk had made the decision to break up USAID – one of the world’s largest humanitarian programs – despite lacking formal authority or official approval – District Judge Theodore Chuang wrote that there was “no alternative” than for Musk and other officials to provide testimony regarding their decision-making process.
The ruling represents a win for a group of anonymous former USAID employees who are suing Musk, DOGE and State Department officials over the closure.
If he ever faces justice for the hundreds of thousands needlessly dead because of him I hope it a fine based on net worth like the Nordic countries do, and then death.
Unfortunately it’s the US justice system and Elon has the largest Wealth Value in the world
Yeah but that value is based almost exclusively on stock in volatile companies like Tesla. Kill Tesla and that disappears basically overnight.
Thankfully Tesla is falling. But in the meantime Spacex is taking up the lead to send humans back to the moon and eventually Mars, Starlink is showing to be a value in Ukraine and for Iranian people trying to resist oppression.
(These two shall fall eventually.)
Yes but that concentration of wealth is not only an asset but a threat.
He’s rich. Obscenely rich. The kind of rich where you can buy other rich people. He has no peers.
And if you take him out, that money, power, influence, it’s all up for grabs. The power vacuum is intoxicating to a certain subset of humanity who, funny thing, he’s been propping up.
I’m concerned about the leopards. They are going to die of morbid obesity.
Pretty sure Elon has his Will state that his AI Wifu Grok is to get everything…which is a nightmare in of itself
That would be a dream come true. AI agents are not legal entities with the right to own or inherit property. Therefore, all of his stuff has no legal owner. By the principle of escheat, it now belongs to the State.
Sadly, I doubt Elon’s lawyers are quite this dumb.
AI agents are not legal entities with the right to own or inherit property.
Maybe not yet. But we’ve decided that corporations are people already. Maybe he’s incorporated his AI girlfriend somewhere…
Best we can realistically hope for is luigi
deleted by creator
I thought that said deported.
My evening is ruined.
This is so annoying. If he wasn’t allowed to or able to or supposed to, how did it happen???
USAID was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy via executive order under the authority of the Congress-passed Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. While authorized by this legislation, it was later formally codified as an independent agency by Congress through the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998.
Sadly, a LOT of people stayed home and did not vote for Kamala Harris, or they voted 3rd party, and Trump was elected to run the Executive branch. The Trump administration decided the executive branch could choose which laws they executed. The opposition was immediate and lawsuits were filed, but the gears of justice grind slowly, so here we are in 2026 with depositions finally starting.
That is true, yes - but hardly actionable for anyone other than said voters.
The constitution was written by people who assumed the positions they were creating would always be occupied by good-faith actors. They weren’t.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” - John Adams
Haha wow I worked on the founders papers site when it first started, was not expecting that
Well thanks for the source! xD
Most pedos are used to being the only adult in the room. They make up whatever rules they want.
Spoiler Alert: It was a grift at the expense of the American tax payer. Like literally everything the Republican party does.
Elect criminals, get robbed.
Maybe trial him for mass murder as this costed an estimate of 600.000 to 1.200.000 people their lives.
I could be wrong here, but are you sure that’s not a projected outcome due to the fallout vs present has happened. I don’t doubt it will, just not sure it has.
Thanks.
Also I didnt know this part at all
The slashing of US foreign assistance was followed by cuts by the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and other developed nations, which are set to take effect this year and next year, compounding the impact.
You’d have hoped the international community would have also stepped up to help fill in the gaps, not that they would ever have been able to fully fill it. That’s the opposite.
Well in the U.S. a life comes out to about 10,000,000 in court on average. So if he’s caused 10,000 to die, so far, charge him 100,000,000,000. And make it payable to the people he caused harm with, with no ability to declare bankruptcy, you know… Like he supports for every 17/18 year old signing contracts to go to college.
Elon musk: he’s like henry kissinger levels of evil.
So he’s going to win the Nobel?
Ten’s of thousands of people have already died at the hands of Elon Musk destroying USAID. It was all part of their plan. Then Elon got hundreds of billions in welfare from trump for helping do the dirty work.
And America just sat by and watched.
We truly are a weak nation.
Okay, but they’re going to depose him, so that’ll balance the scales.
Freeze his assets. He needs to fund the rebuilding of our national security infrastructure
Not just freeze them but nationalize them along with all his companies (except for Twatter and Grok, put them out of their misery) and, as @Gammelfisch@lemmy.world said, throw him into prison. But before we do that, we have to “get rid” of Der Orange Führer.
all his companies are slowly becoming one - spacex is taking over xa"i" which already owns shitter
maybe starlink is somewhere in the middle or just separately owned by spacex
means you can’t get one without all, but there is a bright side of shitter and the elon regurgitater can just be shut off once it’s taken over
Starlink is just a shittier corrupt nasa. Just give the company to NASA
…and toss his neo-Nazi ass into prison.
France is definitely going to issue an arrest warrant before we do
He needs to fund the rebuilding of our national security infrastructure
The administration doesn’t want our security rebuilt, if we did that Russia, China and other foreign and domestic agents trying to get their capital-seeking tentacles into our every-day lives, extracting our every last cent, won’t have a back-door into your personal information and shopping habits and profiles of your specific emotional vulnerabilities so the algorithm can feed you just news stories that validate and reinforce your feelings towards their specific agendas.
Who cares what this corrupt administration wants we should arrest them with a second amendment mob and all the Israeli backed politicians too
Unfortunately we broadly allowed the bulk of our population to check out and the 2024 exit polling confirms it, they voted for all this because they had no idea what they were doing, and now this group of jackasses controls the military and we can’t really directly assault them unless we can radicalize a LOT more comfortable liberal middle-class people.
Besides, we can still turn this around. Mussolini (and a number of other dictators) were not defeated by a plucky band of armed rebels who stormed the capital, he was arrested by his own government and handed over to the opposition who executed him. Even the most corrupt systems can break if we apply enough pressure.
For what? All that damage and it’s extremely unlikely he committed a crime. He held no official cabinet position and had no official authority. Probably didn’t even do much of anything himself. US isn’t capable of holding a billionaire accountable.
He’s committed countless crimes. Unfortunately he was able to shutdown several investigations into him and his companies from various agencies during the Dodge fiasco. He basically Elizabeth Holmes on a massive scale. I agree that it doesn’t seem we have laws for the wealthy but people are getting pissed so I have some hope m.
What crimes? Name them. And how they would be proven beyond a reasonable doubt? Remember, all he has to do is create reasonable doubt. These guys have staff who will literally do nothing much make sure that doubt exists. Name one specific order he gave ar DOGE that is verifiable - one order that he definitely gave, that a specific person definitely followed. You can’t do it. Prosecutors won’t be able to either.
If anything there will be more of a case against government workers for following instructions from people who had no legal authority to give them.
This is why granting someone power completely outside of legal bounds - outside of any laws that govern the cabinet - is a really really bad idea.
Look dude I get it you really like Elon but he’s a criminal and deserves to go to jail or hang for the thousands of people who died due to his USAID cuts. Dodge shut down several investigations into him and his company’s crimes. I’m done with this conversation and you
Look dude I get it you really like Elon
0/10 reading comprehension.
but he’s a criminal and deserves to go to jail or hang for the thousands of people who died due to his USAID cuts.
Agreed.
I’m done with this conversation and you
Cool but what I was saying is that you’ll never pin any of this on him because he managed to do all the damage he did without committing a crime. The fact that this was possible is itself the problem . You haven’t even engaged with what the actual problem is, you’re just reacting emotionally.
Oh no. A deposition. Questions will be asked. He’s in big trouble.
He might even get a finger wagged at him!
And what will that do?
At worst? Ever so slightly stoke voter outrage at this whole fiasco and increase awareness of the oligarch class.
At best? Fines, jail time, reinstatement of disbanded agencies.
Nothing in the at best camp is likely to happen, but making a spectacle out of it and potentially getting someone to admit something they don’t mean to will likely help nudge some voters. Even if they’re mostly left leaning getting more people to turn out will help.
Christ, can they seize all of his assets?
Also, will this be recorded and shown to the public?
DEPORT THIS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT!
But he’s the “right kind” of African!
/S (in case this is needed)
Ok, and then what?
Dems will hound him doggedly for donations next election cycle.
Sir, there’s a punctuation mark. You are supposed to stop there. What are you doing? It’s inconveniencing rich people.
For just a moment I thought it said ‘deported’. For just that moment, I felt elation like I haven’t known in years.
I’m still hopeful.
I thought it said dropped… Like a food shipment out of a plane.
Still hopeful.
I thought it said doped… Like a ridiculous amount of acid.
Still hopeful.
Honestly most people don’t even know what “deposed” means and figure it means something bad is going to happen to literally the richest person on Earth and I can’t stop rubbing my temples and letting out beleaguered sighs.
(X) to Doubt
world’s largest?
