Elon Musk has a lot of stuff on his plate right now (asking investors for another $20 billion for SpaceX, defending Tesla, getting to Mars), but he’s not so busy that he doesn’t have time to respond to claims from Ro Khanna, the Democratic representative for the district in the heart of Silicon Valley, that DOGE cuts to USAID may ultimately kill millions of children. For that prediction, the trillionaire wants Khanna thrown in prison.
If you’re just tuning in: Over the weekend, Khanna, a Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said on a podcast that Musk should testify about the DOGE cuts that effectively shuttered USAID, referencing analysis from The Lancet that the agency had helped prevent 90 million global deaths (30 million among children) over the past two decades, and that its gutting “could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths among children younger than 5 years.” Speaking to Jennifer Welch, the host of I’ve Had It, Khanna declared, “There needs to be accountability for Elon Musk. You know, they’re celebrating that he created 4,400 millionaires [through the SpaceX IPO], but they don’t talk about the 4.5 million children around the world who he possibly sentenced to death by dismantling USAID.” Musk, Khanna continued, “needs to answer for that. He needs to be subpoenaed. He needs to face investigation. He needs to answer for what he did with DOGE. It’s not just ‘let’s move on.’” During the same episode, Khanna promoted his tax proposal, the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, which would apply a 5 percent annual wealth tax on assets over $1 billion. (As of midday on Tuesday, Musk’s net worth sat at $1.1 trillion.)
