The Week: Musk’s DOGE Takes on Washington

• Trump has always wanted to develop a crime-infested, corrupt, dangerous strip of land by the sea. But enough about Atlantic City . . .

• Elon Musk has not been content to let his Department of Government Efficiency serve merely as an adviser to policymakers like past government-cutting efforts such as the Reagan-era Grace Commission. His latest target is the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID, an effort by the Kennedy administration to buy goodwill in the Cold War, has done a lot of good over the years. But it has also come increasingly unmoored from its original purposes and attracted Republican critics for funding progressive boondoggles. Musk uncovered more. After two USAID security officials tried to stop Musk’s DOGE from gaining access to classified materials in restricted areas within the agency, employees were locked out and Musk declared, “We’re shutting it down.” President Trump then named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as USAID’s acting administrator. USAID should be fundamentally restructured or abolished, but without help from Congress, it may prove difficult to make that stick.

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• Trump has always wanted to develop a crime-infested, corrupt, dangerous strip of land by the sea. But enough about Atlantic City . . .

• Elon Musk has not been content to let his Department of Government Efficiency serve merely as an adviser to policymakers like past government-cutting efforts such as the Reagan-era Grace Commission. His latest target is the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID, an effort by the Kennedy administration to buy goodwill in the Cold War, has done a lot of good over the years. But it has also come increasingly unmoored from its original purposes and attracted Republican critics for funding progressive boondoggles. Musk uncovered more. After two USAID security officials tried to stop Musk’s DOGE from gaining access to classified materials in restricted areas within the agency, employees were locked out and Musk declared, “We’re shutting it down.” President Trump then named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as USAID’s acting administrator. USAID should be fundamentally restructured or abolished, but without help from Congress, it may prove difficult to make that stick.