USAID - that Elon Musk wants to shut down - funded college tuition of jihadist who became prominent al Qaeda figure

Recently resurfaced documents obtained by Fox News show that the agency paid American-born terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki's tuition for Colorado State University - years before he was killed in an American drone strike. Copies of the June 1990 file, which was shared online, shows USAID granted al-Awlaki's request for an exchange visa after he fraudulently claimed he was a Yemeni national.

The filing states that USAID provided 'full funding' for al-Awlaki as a J-1 scholar due to his alleged status as a Yemeni citizen. The State Department awards J-1 scholarships to overseas students who would like short term visas. However, al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico to Yemeni parents. He was then raised in both the United States and Yemen.

Once authorities discovered the falsehood, they issued an arrest warrant for al-Awlaki on fraud charges in 2002. But prosecutors later withdrew the warrant, according to George Washington University's research and archival institution, the National Security Archive.

The revelation comes as Elon Musk has threatened to shut down America’s $50-billion-a-year foreign aid agency. The Tesla CEO called it “criminal” and “beyond repair” adding that President Donald Trump had agreed with him to close the federal agency, which was founded by JFK and has the largest budget of its kind in the world.

Musk said during a live discussion on X Spaces: “He agreed we should shut it down. It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm in it. What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair. We’re shutting it down.”

USAID is an organization that provides foreign aid and humanitarian assistance to countries grappling with poverty, conflict, disease, and natural disasters. Initially established in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy, it has released billions of dollars since its inception across the world to support and propel struggling nations out of economic and political instability.

Musk’s comments followed the news that two top USAID security chiefs had been placed on leave after they refused to hand over classified information to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, to inspection teams, according to a U.S. official to The Associated Press Sunday. The DOGE staff lacked sufficient security clearance to obtain and access the desired information, so the two USAID security officials – John Vorhees and Deputy Brian McGill – were legally obligated to deny access.

Despite facing resistance, the DOGE teams did eventually obtain access to the classified information, which includes intelligence reports, according to the former official. On Friday, two agency officials told Reuters that Musk aides, charged with running the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, locked senior government workers out of computer systems – a database that contains the personal data of millions of federal employees.

A review of USAID’s recent history shows that it repeatedly has been accused of financial mismanagement and corruption long before Donald Trump's second administration, Fox News Digital found. Fox News Digital looked back at the controversies USAID has faced in recent years, finding a bevy of allegations, including that the agency reportedly helped fund terrorist organizations and Chinese groups, and that its watchdog allegedly omitted negative findings from publicly published reports.