CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Unchecked Billionaire Oligarchs

Not long after the second Trump administration took office, a new power center emerged in Washington under the banner of “government efficiency.” Through the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, Elon Musk was handed extraordinary influence over federal agencies, and USAID became an early target, as legal challenges and reporting on DOGE’s efforts to control USAID’s funding streams make clear.

Inside USAID, I saw global health, humanitarian response, democracy and governance, and conflict prevention work abruptly stripped down or eliminated. Career colleagues with decades of experience were pushed out or sidelined, partners abroad were left with collapsing funding streams, and thousands of employees, including me, lost our jobs. The larger damage fell on communities that depended on those programs for disease control, humanitarian relief, peacebuilding and institutional survival. None of this followed a serious national debate. It reflected the preferences of a narrow set of actors who viewed expertise and accountability as obstacles, not safeguards.

Similar cuts, purges and “efficiency” drives hit other departments and agencies, from CDC and HHS to FEMA and State, quietly hollowing out capacity across the U.S. government, a pattern analyzed in overviews such as the Brookings Institution’s commentary on DOGE and reflected in broader discussions of oligarchic power. The machinery that once underpinned global health, disaster response, diplomacy and development has been hobbled far more than most Americans realize. This is what oligarchic power looks like up close: a small, insulated class using its wealth and access to reshape the institutions everyone else depends on, with minimal debate and even less accountability.

Despite the scale of the damage, there has been no serious attempt to hold Musk, DOGE or their accomplices to account. A few depositions and cursory hearings have taken place, and watchdogs have filed lawsuits and opened investigations, but one year after USAID’s dismantling there is still no real reckoning proportionate to the harm, no clear plan to repair what was broken, and no consequences for those who broke it, as........

© CounterPunch