US President Donald Trump has praised Elon Musk’s slashing of aid expenditure to a tiny South African country that he claimed “nobody has ever heard of”. During a record 99-minute address to Congress, Trump included the landlocked African country in a list of the recipients of US aid that had recently had it rescinded as part of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts.
“Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho,” the president said. In an apparent jibe which was met with laughs and grins from fellow Republicans, he added: “Which nobody has ever heard of.”
Lesotho has one of the highest rates of AIDs in the world, with the US providing medication and funds to raise awareness of the disease for nearly two decades. America has spent over $630 million in the small country since 2006, according to Lesotho’s US embassy.
South African-born billionaire Musk has overseen the dismantling of the US’s foreign aid agency USAID since Trump took office in January, in a bid to curtail the country’s non-domestic spending.
USAID, which was founded in 1961, has allowed America to support more than 100 countries and promote, health, education and disaster relief around the globe.
DOGE has also been tasked with slashing the size of the US federal government. Musk has claimed that the effort has already saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars by cancelling contracts and firing workers, among other measures.
During his address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump declared that “the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over”.
Democratic senator for Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren fired back that she “agreed with Donald Trump that an unelected bureaucrat should be fired”, adding: “Let’s start with Elon Musk.”
Musk’s barrage of cost-cutting action under DOGE has already faced a slew of lawsuits over the breadth of its authority and the Tesla owner’s role in the department.
High-ranking Republicans, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also instructed their staff to ignore an email from Musk demanding that they list five things they had accomplished over the last week.
The multi-billionaire said the email had been “consistent with President Trump’s instructions” and that “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation”.
