Bill Gates Urges White House to Undo USAID Cuts Amid Fraud Investigation: Report
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has reportedly voiced concerns over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, which has led to the closure of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) offices and the freezing of its funds.
Speaking in the wake of these developments, Gates praised Musk's "private sector work" as "very innovative, really fantastic," but warned that "a lot of private sector people, when they get into government, they don’t take the time necessarily to see what the good work is or why it’s structured the way it is." He specifically pointed to his concerns about the "USAID stuff," suggesting that the changes could have dire consequences.
Gates emphasized the critical partnership between his foundation and USAID, highlighting collaboration on nutrition initiatives and vaccine distribution. "There’s incredible people," he said, adding, "they’re not actually worms that work there." He cautioned that without restoring USAID’s efforts, "you could have literally millions of deaths." Original post on X.
Attempting to avert the agency’s collapse, Gates reportedly made direct appeals to officials in the Trump administration, urging them to preserve funding for global health projects like childhood immunizations and HIV treatment. A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation confirmed, “Bill was recently in Washington D.C. meeting with decision makers to discuss the life-saving impact of U.S. international assistance and the need for a strategic plan to protect the world’s most vulnerable while safeguarding America’s health and security.” Original post on X.
According to Reuters, Gates stressed that his foundation could not "replace the role of the U.S. government," and emphasized that "no foundation has that capability."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s investigation into USAID is escalating. Following a bombshell probe by DOGE, serious abuses of foreign aid programs were uncovered, with possible criminal charges looming over agency employees.
Pete Marocco, USAID’s deputy administrator-designate, recently briefed members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the investigation’s findings. The review, part of Trump’s broader scrutiny of foreign aid, reportedly revealed substantial misconduct. During the meeting, Marocco indicated that the DOGE-led probe could lead to criminal referrals against USAID officials. Original post on X.
Rep. Keith Self (R-TX), who attended the session, told DailyMail that "there’s still judicial action that has even come out as late as this morning," and that authorities "intend to refer USAID officials to DOJ," emphasizing that fraud "is a criminal act."
Self noted that prosecutions would only proceed if investigators could compile a substantial "paper trail" to support the allegations. "You're going to have to have a paper trail to prove that," he said, adding, "I doubt that they would refer anyone without a very strong paper trail." Original post on X.
Another attendee backed up the severity of the claims, telling DailyMail.com that Marocco informed both Democratic and Republican lawmakers that "the waste, fraud, and abuse at USAID was more severe than initially presumed."
"He told lawmakers that multiple referrals to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution were being considered," the source said. They added that USAID’s "decentralized accountability system" allowed grantees to spend American tax dollars "in ways that were both inappropriate and potentially illegal."