Elon Musk Baselessly Accuses Samantha Power of Corruption After She Hammered Him For Spreading ‘Falsehoods’ About USAID

Samantha Power hammered Elon Musk and the Trump administration in a recent CNN interview for pushing out “falsehoods” and “misinformation” about USAID, the organization she led up until President Donald Trump took power in January and swiftly dismantled it.

Over the weekend, Musk also shared claims that Power enriched herself while running the humanitarian agency, which were quickly debunked by journalists.

“Ambassador Power, The New York Times is reporting tonight that the Trump administration intends to cut the USAID staff from about 10,000 people down to about 290. What does this mean for the US? Why is that a bad thing, in your opinion?” asked CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday night.

“Well, these are staff who are overseeing programs that are saving lives or were saving lives until a few weeks ago. These are people who are making sure that kids who are on the brink of starvation get access to food that is currently now stuck in ports in Kenya, in the United States itself, food that American farmers have grown, food that families are desperate to get their hands on,” replied Power, adding:

And even if a switch were flipped and someone were to reconsider and say, yes, let’s go back to using American farmers’ food to reach people, there would be nobody to administer these programs. This is devastating and it is ceding the field as well to the People’s Republic of China, to the Russian Federation, and other malign actors who would like nothing more than to see the U.S. ground game in American foreign policy, the face of American values disappear like this.

“You think this is a victory for dictators, autocratic regimes around the world who are competing with the U.S. in Africa, in South America, all around the world for influence?” Cooper followed up.

“Well, it’s not even an opinion. They are out relishing this moment and celebrating it, including a statement, an official statement from the Russian foreign ministry today. So this is a disaster, not just from a humanitarian standpoint, from the standpoint of all the beneficiaries who may, in fact, die because they won’t have access to U.S. resources. But it’s a disaster for U.S. national interests and national security,” replied Power, who also previously served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

“Elon Musk has called USAID evil a criminal organization, a left-wing psyop. The president himself says it’s run by radical lunatics. I mean. Why do you think your former agency has drawn their ire to this degree?” Cooper asked.

“Well, I would note that there is so many– I would note that there is so much misinformation and so many falsehoods now circulating about U.S. aid. That would be heartbreaking enough in any circumstances. But they’ve also taken down the U.S. aid website, which actually lists what we do. It’s a $38 billion budget. 60% of the budget goes to humanitarian emergencies, literally to provide shelter, food and medicine to keep people alive,” Power replied, adding:

And in addition to humanitarian emergencies, out of that 60%, global health programs preventing malaria, TB helping people with HIV. And very critically, in the wake of the pandemic, actually helping do surveillance to make sure that we don’t have another Covid style outbreak that makes its way to the United States and kills Americans.

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who actually used to be a proponent of foreign aid and I saw a talk he gave where he said, you know, he pointed out what a small percentage of the overall spending of the United States. And this is, I think it’s one less than 1% or so of U.S. overall spending annually. And he praised the big impact that it actually have. He’s now saying that walking away from foreign aid entirely– that the U.S. isn’t walking away from foreign aid entirely, but that this is the, quote, the least popular thing that the government spends money on,” Cooper added.

“This is essential work. And there is no question in my mind that the United States is going to return to doing this work. It will have just spent billions and billions of dollars dismantling the architecture that took six decades to build. And that is cost ineffectiveness in the extreme,” replied Power.

Forbes fact-checked Musk’s claims over the weekend that Power enriched herself while running USAID, writing, “No. Musk responded to a post on X claiming former USAID chief Samantha Power earned $23 million between 2020 and 2024. Power received a salary of $183,100 while working as administrator of USAID, according to federal records, and there’s no evidence suggesting she benefitted from her position to the tune of millions of dollars.”

Power, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for her famous book titled, ‘A Problem from Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide, made public financial disclosures while heading USAID. Forbes reported, “In 2024, Power disclosed a retirement fund valued at up to $1 million and other assets held in ETFs and mutual funds. Over four years, some of Power’s assets rose in value, but many of them were mutual funds that track broad stock market indexes—and there isn’t any evidence that growth had anything to do with her job at USAID.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.