An EU Commissioner has urged for USAID cuts reversal, highlighting its importance in buying food, water, and medicine for starving children. The commissioner said this in response to Elon Musk saying money cannot buy happiness.
EU Commissioner highlights impact of USAID cuts, pushes for reversal
Hadja Lahbib, the EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management, has urged the reversal of USAID cuts in a post on X. She posted this statement after Elon Musk claimed that money cannot buy happiness. The USAID, which is the U.S. Agency for International Development, used to be the world’s largest foreign aid agency before it was shut down in July 2025.
The commissioner in her post noted that while money cannot buy happiness, it can buy food, water, and medicine for starving children. She went on to affirm that the EU is the world’s number one humanitarian donor, with over €1.9 billion in donations this year alone.
Elon Musk had initially posted that “Whoever said ‘money cannot buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about.” His post has generated about five hundred thousand likes and eighty-five thousand retweets since February 5.
The Trump administration established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which played a major role in the dismantling of DOGE.
Humanitarian activities suffer brunt of USAID cuts
Humanitarian activities all over the world have been suffering from the dismantlement of the USAID. The closure of USAID has triggered healthcare crises besetting Africa and other developing countries in the world.
Atul Gawande, a professor at Harvard School of Public Health, condemned the closure of USAID. He noted that assistance provided by USAID had saved over 92 million lives over two decades.
“We are now witnessing what the historian Richard Rhodes termed ‘public man-made death’,” Gawande wrote.
However, the cuts have affected charities and other non-profits that depend on USAID to deliver necessary supplies to those in need. This, in turn, has impeded humanitarian activities for people in need.
