Elon Musk has called for the shutdown of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America (VOA), two media organizations funded by the US government, through a post on his X social media platform.
The billionaire, who has become an influential figure in the Trump administration, made the comment in response to a post on X by US presidential envoy for special missions Richard Grenell, who criticized the two outlets.
“Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are media outlets paid for by the American taxpayers. It is state-owned media. These outlets are filled with far left activists,” Grenell wrote on X on Feb. 9.
Voice of America, which has been in operation for over 80 years, provides news in 49 languages, including Burmese, to a weekly audience estimated at more than 362 million people around the world. The agency employed over 960 staff members as of 2022.
RFE/RL reports in 27 languages to 23 countries with more than 700 full time journalists and 1,300 freelancers, reaching more than 47 million people every week.
Musk, who heads a Trump administration program known as the “Department of Government Efficiency”—which, despite its name, does not have official Cabinet-level status like other US government departments—has also criticized federal payments to other media organizations, arguing that taxpayer money should not be used to support such outlets.
He has advocated for significant reductions in federal spending, including the shuttering of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a US federal agency that distributes foreign aid and development assistance.
The Trump administration has taken steps towards dissolving USAID, including making huge cuts to its workforce and ordering the immediate suspension of almost all of its aid programs. These steps have already had significant consequences, freezing over $39 million in funding for human rights, pro-democracy and independent media projects in Myanmar over the next three years, and triggering a healthcare crisis in refugee camps along the Myanmar-Thai border due to hospital closures.
The targeting of government-funded media and aid groups has triggered a debate in the US about the use of taxpayer funds. Critics of the cuts argue they will harm US efforts to counter misinformation and support independent journalism and humanitarian aid worldwide.
The first Trump administration sought to scale back funding for government-supported international media and foreign aid programs, a move that was strongly opposed by congressional Democrats.
