WASHINGTON — Employees of the United States Agency for International Development based out of the nation’s capital were ordered overnight not to come into the office Monday and to work from home.
“At the direction of Agency leadership, the USAID headquarters at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C. will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, February 3, 2025,” said an email sent to staff overnight, according to a copy obtained by NBC News.
The message said agency personnel who normally work at USAID’s headquarters “will work remotely tomorrow” except for people who perform essential on-site and building maintenance duties. “Further guidance will be forthcoming,” it said.
The e-mail provided no reason for the work-from-home directive, but it comes after tech billionaire Elon Musk, who’s been closely advising President Donald Trump after being tapped to lead his Department of Government Efficiency, said in the early hours Monday that he and the president were in the process of shutting down USAID.
Trump administration officials are actively considering placing USAID under the State Department’s authority, more than a dozen current and former officials and sources familiar with the discussions have said. As of Monday, USAID’s website no longer loads on the web, resulting in a message that its server IP address cannot be found.
USAID was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy and has been the U.S. government’s main international humanitarian and development arm.
According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, more than 10,000 people work at the agency, with about two-thirds serving overseas. In recent years, USAID has “provided significant humanitarian, development, and economic support to Ukraine and countries affected by Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as humanitarian assistance in Gaza and elsewhere,” the report says.
Musk has been leading Trump’s effort to cut down the federal government’s bureaucracy, running what is called the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not an official agency.
On Saturday, USAID’s director of security and his deputy were put on administrative leave after they attempted to block people working with DOGE from accessing the agency’s secure systems.
“No one feels safe to go anywhere near the Ronald Reagan building,” one USAID official told NBC News. “We just had Elon Musk call us a criminal organization. Our security chief was escorted out. We know we are being surveilled by DOGE.”
In his announcement Monday that he was working to shut down USAID, Musk said that Trump supported the move.
“With regard to the USAID stuff, I went over [it] with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said of the president. “I actually checked with him a few times [and] said, ‘Are you sure?’” Musk added that Trump responded, “Yes.”
David Ingram contributed.
