The world’s first trillionaire is a killer

Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO will likely make him the richest person walking the planet. And while the mountain of his appalling personal conduct could fill many books, one fact stands out in particular: A year ago, Musk’s actions directly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. He did this deliberately. And, what’s worse – Happily.

This is not a serious person, but his mistreatment of the world is extremely serious. In the first months of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Musk-led Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) dismantled the US Agency for International Development, whose mission was a boon to public health around the world. Musk called the lifesaving agency a “criminal organization” and gleefully celebrated spending the weekend “turning USAID into a lumberjack machine.” This was a good reference if you want everyone to think you’re the killer fargo. Mission accomplished, Elon.

In the months that follow, public health models will point to Musk Was A killer, on a far greater scale than any Coen Brothers villain. A tracker co-created by Boston University professor Brooke Nichols estimates more than 780,000 deaths — mostly children, many infants — due to the Trump administration’s USAID cuts beginning in 2025, from malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and other causes. These deaths, which were widely predicted from the beginning, were a direct, known, and undisputed result of DOGE’s actions. We do not know the exact number of deaths, but many experts working on identifying the scale of the tragedy generally agree that it is in the hundreds of thousands. Global Researcher, in Publication NatureIt is estimated that USAID cuts could result in the deaths of 163,500 children annually. Another publication in The Lancet It is said that lakhs more people may come now. Musk showed no signs of caring.

During a televised Cabinet meeting at the White House in 2025, Musk, while wearing a murderous MAGA hat signed by his boss, joked about “accidentally” canceling Ebola prevention. He said that this is a mistake which will be corrected. USAID whistleblower Nicholas Enrich, testifying before Congress, said the fix never came. A little more than a year after Musk’s comments, Africa is facing its worst Ebola outbreak to date. And DOGE’s cleaver for USAID goes far beyond the latest Ebola crisis. According to Enrich, until Musk intervened, the HIV rate among new born babies appeared to be close to zero.

You might think that Musk’s actions dismantling effective global health programs would conflict with his extremely creepy quest to increase the birth rate, but not when you consider the guy is also a huge racist. The list is too long to keep score, but a few relevant highlights: He’s promoted claims of “white genocide” in South Africa, spent much of January posting other white supremacist stuff, and most recently encouraged race riots in Britain to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment. Is there any doubt about why this man had so much fun destroying one of the most successful global health initiatives in history, which saved millions of Black lives?

The Trump administration is full of extremists, but even some of them see Musk this way, “right now.” it The boy is really wild.” Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wills told Vanity Fair Musk was a “complete solo actor”. She says that he “probably knew” that what he was doing would be “horrifying to others”, but he did it anyway. (Unfortunately, Wills also said she was only “initially surprised” by his conduct, which largely mirrors Republicans’ reaction to the party’s own chaos.)

Addressing SpaceX employees on IPO day, Musk said, “There are always problems on Earth. There are always things we want to improve, things we want to solve here on Earth, and we should solve them. But there should also be things that get you excited about the future.” Sounds good, until you consider one of the recent projects Musk was excited about was spearheading vaccination efforts that save children’s lives from deadly diseases. In fact, “there are always problems on Earth” is something you say when you don’t actually care about many of those problems.

Guess what, Elon? There are many things about the future about which people get excited as soon as they wake up in the morning. You fired a lot of them for no good reason, and a lot of them for a bad reason too. The stories of the fired USAID employees are heartbreaking, as are the stories of many in the United States and abroad who have dedicated their lives to missions that range from protecting the dignity and health of human beings to conserving our natural lands. I have met many of these people in person, and unlike the man who fired them, they did not enter public service for personal gain.

Musk hijacked the government to destroy these missions and dehumanize these people in service of the lie that it will make government more efficient. Of course, there is a big difference between “efficiency” and inefficiency. An agency is no more efficient if it does not exist; He has simply been murdered. If you can ignore the fact that the city is burning, a fire department with no firefighters looks good on the balance sheet.

The deliberate destruction of the ability to save life and alleviate suffering is psychopathic behavior – behavior that would dissuade any rational, compassionate person from giving the power to anyone capable of it. But we are here. And while there has always been a class of mega-rich threats to power, including horrible racists, who are indifferent to suffering, it seems we are crossing the Rubicon with Musk. Very few people in history will have the same combination of wealth, media power, and government influence.

After a disappointing end to his reign of terror at DOGE, Musk walked away from government with the same kind of carefree indifference that had marked his tenure. The math is unclear, but it looks like DOGE has saved the government barely any money. Even the libertarian Cato Institute says DOGE did not reduce spending, only reducing federal employment by about 10 percent in 9 months. But when you look beyond the outlay and consider the fact that the operation robbed a vast store of expertise and capability from our society, it’s easy to see why Musk’s project is one of the most expensive ever undertaken.

Musk hasn’t completely moved on from government; It still needs those federal contracts for SpaceX, now more than ever. He may be wearing a different hat now, but nothing else has changed. The This man should not be prevented from having all the wealth in the world for nothing; Perhaps he shouldn’t even be allowed within 500 feet of the school.

Elon Musk proved long ago that he is the wrong man to save the world. Now it is even worse. The world needs to be saved from him.