After Musk’s DOGE Demolished USAID, 500 Tons of Emergency Food — Enough for 1.5 Million Children — Are Doomed to Be Burned

Elon Musk didn’t just waste taxpayer money — his so-called “efficiency” reforms are now leading to the destruction of emergency food meant for starving children.

UNICEF Sudan/2023/Mahmoud

Nearly 500 metric tons of high-energy biscuits — enough to feed 1.5 million children for a week — are set to be incinerated on President Trump’s orders, according to The Atlantic. But this disaster traces directly back to Musk’s failed leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

In January, Musk was given sweeping authority to root out “waste” across the federal government. What followed was the systematic dismantling of USAID, the very agency responsible for delivering humanitarian aid around the globe. After DOGE gutted USAID, no food shipments could move without sign-off from a convoluted chain of Musk-aligned loyalists.

The food, purchased at the end of the Biden administration, has sat idle in a Dubai warehouse for months as infighting and indecision paralyzed the approval process. Now, with the biscuits nearing expiration, the Trump administration is preparing to burn them, at an additional cost of $130,000 to taxpayers.

But the real cost is human.

“Elon Musk’s obsession with optics, loyalty, and gutting ‘the deep state’ has now led directly to the burning of food that could have saved lives,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). “This isn’t efficiency. It’s vandalism.”

This comes just days after a Senate report revealed that Musk’s DOGE initiative wasted $21.7 billion in taxpayer funds — including $110 million in food and medical aid that spoiled under his watch. In other words, this is not an isolated incident — it’s a pattern of catastrophic mismanagement disguised as disruption.

“Elon Musk promised to fix government,” DeLauro said. “Instead, he broke the part that feeds hungry kids — and then lit the wreckage on fire.”