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Elon Musk’s Destruction of USAID Donald Trump’s chief of staff revealed in an explosive new interview that he acted contrary to the Trump administration’s broader goals and fanned a fire the White House couldn’t control.
explosive Vanity Fair Interview with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wills Kill DC Tuesday And it provides a clear view of his opinion of Musk, who until recently was one of the most powerful people in the United States government, commanding a small army of ministers who has overseen the dismantling of the country’s foreign aid apparatus amid a campaign of uncontrolled cost-cutting in the federal government.
Wills offered almost completely unflinching criticism of her colleagues, including the President, and the dynamics that led to the perception of utter chaos around the White House for the first half of 2025. In a statement issued on Musk-owned X following the article’s publication, Wills and the White House attacked Whipple and Vanity Fair over direct quotes published by the news organization. He did not dispute their authenticity.
It was against Musk that Wills leveled the harshest criticisms as he portrayed his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency – “DOGE” – as a disorganized and poorly-managed initiative that lived up to the “move fast and break things” motif, stopping only to inform the White House after plans were already in motion. This applies to USAID, about which the chief of staff said Musk told the White House He was destroying it because he was “already involved in it”.
“The challenge with Elon is staying with him,” Wills said of Musk in a conversation during his DOGE tenure. Vanity Fair. “He’s a reputable ketamine [user]and he sleeps backwards [Executive Office Building] During the day.”
Describing Musk as a “weird, odd duck” whose eccentricities “were not helpful”, Wills strongly criticized the elimination of USAID: “I was initially surprised, as I think anyone who pays attention to government has ever paid attention. U said I believed, as I did, that they did a very good job.”
He further said that Musk shut down programs designed to save lives, including disrupting the AIDS treatment program, against the wishes of the President. UN officials have warned that Disruption of aid program Desire HIV/AIDS caused millions of deaths In the next five years.
“No rational person I can imagine that the USAID process was good. Nobody,” Wills said, explaining that he had to inform Musk that he did not have the authority to kick executives out of their offices.
The White House Chief of Staff was equally clear about the reason Musk’s dismantling of USAID and disruption of major programs were not stopped: because Donald Trump didn’t know about them or didn’t care.
“The president doesn’t know and will never know,” he said during one of 11 interviews with Vanity Fair for this article. “He doesn’t know the details of these small agencies.”
The comment was troubling, given the amount of policymaking and agency leadership the White House has centralized in the West Wing over the past year, and reveals the new importance and power that Trump’s unelected advisers like Stephen Miller still wield within the executive branch.
Musk’s dismantling of USAID comes early in the administration and during the Tesla chief’s first few weeks in the White House. The agency, established during the Cold War, was a major instrument of American diplomacy, influence, and support for developing countries.
“We spent the weekend putting USAID in a wood chipper,” Musk claimed in a social media post, adding that USAID is a criminal organization.
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More than 80 percent of USAID’s work was eliminated after a six-week review led by DOGE and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who oversees USAID under traditional federal structures.
Rubio was appointed acting administrator of USAID in February and in August the role was handed over to Russ Vought, another fiscal adviser and close ally of the president, whom Rubio said he would close down the agency entirely. Only an Act of Congress would be able to legally do this, but it is unclear what functions the agency would still perform, given that the Secretary of State has transferred “key programs” to the State Department itself.
Rubio said in August, “Since January, we have saved billions of taxpayer dollars. And with a small set of core programs transferred to the State Department, USAID is officially closing down.”
Musk recently visited the White House for the first time since his unceremonious ouster earlier this year and his explosive break-up with Donald Trump over exes.
The former DOGE chief accused Trump of being “into the Epstein files” and attacked Republicans over congressional spending levels, before toning down his criticism.
In An Interview with Katie Miller, Last week Musk, wife of Stephen Miller, claimed that DOGE was “somewhat successful” in reaching its cost-cutting goals, but said she would not restart the initiative if Trump gave the chance. Agency, which was officially disbanded He claims to have cut spending by $214 billion during his tenure, by November of 2025, but the actual figure is unverified and appears to be a mystery to many in Washington given the lack of congressional oversight and factual information released by the White House.