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points by archagon 1 day ago | 0 comments

No, the biggest knock against him is how he caused hundreds of thousands of people in the third world to die from sudden cutoff of food and medicine. This will never be forgiven or forgotten.

[–] FeepingCreature 1 day ago

No seriously, this actually didn't happen. That one website is a "model" and simply doesn't account at all for the fact that most of the critical parts of USAID were picked up by other US aid programs.

It looked like it might happen for a bit! And it is quite bad of course that that could have happened! But it didn't.

[–] archagon 1 day ago

Yes, it fucking happened. These people have names and reputable journalists on the ground talked to the grieving family members of the deceased: https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2026/07/how-pulitzer-final..., https://www.propublica.org/series/the-end-of-aid

I have read multiple articles to the same effect from other publications. Aid got cut off instantly (to the extent that supply trucks were left without gasoline), people could not access medicine and food that they needed to survive, and then they died, horribly. That was just ground zero.

Get out of your bubble before you destroy yourself.

[–] FeepingCreature 1 day ago

Yes, people died. People did not die at the scale reported.

edit: Okay fine, I'll rephrase it. There is no convincing evidence at this point of mass deaths. It's entirely speculative on the basis, frankly, of assumptions we know to be wrong.

[–] olelele 21 hours ago

Seriously my dude, this is not a hill to die on.

[–] FeepingCreature 12 hours ago

Please by all means! I was behind the 700k number for months before I read the fine print and the SA mortality stats. Please give me better data.

[–] brightball 1 day ago

That did not happen…

[–] archagon 1 day ago

It did. Go ask your LLMs about it if you don't believe me.

[–] brightball 1 day ago

Confirmed. Those numbers come from models and estimates but are not supported by anything that actually happened on the ground. Funding was transferred to the state department.

[–] archagon 1 day ago

It looks like you're pretty bad at prompting. Here, let me help you out: https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2026/07/how-pulitzer-final...

(I literally just asked Gemini "how many deaths are verified to be caused directly by the sudden shutdown of usaid?" to find some articles I had read featuring actual journalists tracking deaths on the ground.)

[–] FeepingCreature 1 day ago

This is literally an interview that doesn't even list a number with a source. The one number it lists is a self-declared estimate of 700k deaths of which it sources three (3).

[–] misiti3780 1 day ago

Trump did that, not Elon. The president is the only one with the power to cut that aid. Sure, he was the "face" of it but Trump signed the EOs

[–] afavour 1 day ago

Elon proposed it and implemented it. Yes, Trump signed off on it but by that logic no one in the Trump administration is guilty of anything other than Trump himself, which we all know is not true.

[–] UltraSane 1 day ago

Elon actually bragged about destroying USAID on Twitter.

"We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead."

This is the richest man in the world being GLEEFUL abut destroying an organization that helps the poorest people in the world. Musk is basically Ebenezer Scrooge.

In an interview when asked about it he insisted their was vast amounts of fraud in USAID.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886307316804263979?lang=en

[–] scottyah 1 day ago

USAID was a pretty evil organization that was founded and used to bribe warring organizations under the guise of humanitarianism.

[–] sirtaj 1 hour ago

It was definitely a mixed blessing, but I had a close relative (a local, not an American) who worked with them in some poor countries for some years. The verdict was, yes, it's pretty clearly a CIA front, but they also did some real and serious humanitarian work.

[–] archagon 1 day ago

Whatever USAID is guilty of, it is indisputable that thousands of people died from aid being suddenly cut off without a tapering period. You can find many news articles talking to people on the ground that confirm this.

[–] UltraSane 1 day ago

What does "bribe warring organizations " even mean?

[–] scottyah 10 hours ago

It was formed during the cold war to mingle in the proxy wars. We sent guns to the militias, and basically bribed towns and villages (by selective donations) to come to the USA's side. It's basically a mechanism to pay off warlord bribe demands.

[–] UltraSane 7 hours ago

It had the side effect of preventing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people from starvation and disease

[–] MisterMower 56 minutes ago

Alternatively, it had the effect of impoverishing those same people by destroying any incentive to figure out how to produce their own food.

[–] MisterMower 1 day ago

The money was ostensibly used for noble purposes but usually ended up funding unsavory characters or organizations that are actually at cross purposes with stated US goals. A lot of humanitarian aid we send to the Middle Eastfor example, ends up in the hands of terrorists.[1]

1. https://oig.usaid.gov/node/7283

[–] defrost 1 day ago

> A lot of humanitarian aid ... ends up in the hands of terrorists.

Which you "prove" by linking to a story how $9 million was "diverted" (although the person responsible was caught and charged) out of a total of $12 billion.

That's 9 parts of 12 thousand or 0.075% that you are describing as "a lot".

[–] MisterMower 1 day ago

If you think that is the only instance of fraud you are deluding yourself.

[–] throwitaway222 1 day ago

MrBeast did more for people in Africa than USAID ever did. The only thing USAID tents were used for was filming ISIS videos.

[–] archagon 1 day ago

The man who fires the gun is just as culpable as the man who makes the plan. And boy, did Musk enjoy playing executioner! He acted with gleeful, reckless abandon and gloated about “taking a chainsaw” to USAID. And as I recall, they shoved Rubio in front of the cameras only after Musk's illegal rampage already happened, as a sort of fig leaf.