Elon Musk’s aggressive cost-cutting measures in the US government will put “millions” at risk, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has warned. If aid funding from the world’s largest economy continues to dwindle, lives will be on the line, the philanthropist added.
He hopes some of the measures introduced by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will be reversed.
“I’m hopeful that some significant portion of that can be reversed and preserved,” the billionaire said in a PBS interview. “Elon, of all the elimination he’s done, 99 per cent of it is these employees at USAID who work overseas in very tough circumstances. They allow the US, in addition to our military power, to get out there and help with famine relief and HIV medicines.”
Earlier this month, Mr Gates said Trump seemed open to discussions on continuing USAID support. But with Musk and Trump now halting USAID’s work – placing staff on leave, freezing spending, and reducing the agency’s workforce from thousands to just 300 – those discussions are nowhere in the picture.
“I know a lot of those workers, I know that work,” Mr Gates said. “A very, very high percentage of it is stuff every taxpayer would be proud of.”
He specifically spoke of the importance of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) which has saved over 26 million lives through HIV and AIDS prevention with $110 billion in funding since its inception two decades ago.
Mr Gates claimed Musk acknowledged potential missteps in DOGE’s approach. Last week, when asked about a $50 million aid payment for condoms in Gaza that was allegedly blocked by mistake, Musk admitted to errors. The payment was reportedly intended for HIV prevention in Mozambique’s Gaza region, not the conflict zone in Palestine.
Asked how many lives were at risk if these health programmes weren’t reinstated, Mr Gates said the number was “definitely in the millions.”
He said that PEPFAR has kept over 20 million alive with HIV drugs. “It was started by President Bush and continued on a bipartisan basis literally up to the day Elon decided it wasn’t a good organisation,” he said.
“Keeping people alive from HIV – the US has done a great job. Even if we have to reduce that sum, an abrupt withdrawal is a terrible thing.”
When the White House announced its 90-day pause on foreign aid, it highlighted that the US spends around $40 billion a year on such funding. But this is a small fraction of total government spending – just 1.6 per cent of the $2.44 trillion spent since October.
Among the aid programs scrapped by DOGE was a $21 million USAID grant to boost voter turnout in India. Trump defended DOGE’s budget cuts, saying the agency had already saved over $55 billion by eliminating what he called wasteful government spending.