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Bold Names

What This Former USAID Head Had to Say About Elon Musk and DOGE

Bold Names

The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.41.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and former head of USAID, has spent his career on the frontlines of the fight against global poverty. That gives him unique insight into the rapidly changing world of foreign aid and philanthropy. How are NGOs attempting to fill the funding gaps left as the Trump administration turns inward? Shah speaks to WSJ’s Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins on the latest episode of the Bold Names podcast. Check Out Past Episodes: ‘Businesses Don’t Like Uncertainty’: How Cisco Is Navigating AI and Trump 2.0  Palmer Luckey's 'I Told You So' Tour: AI Weapons and Vindication Reid Hoffman Says AI Isn’t an ‘Arms Race,’ but America Needs to Win Let us know what you think of the show. Email us at [email protected] Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:22.0

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0:27.9

slash UK slash AI for people. Hey, Madness, what would you do with a billion dollars? I think I'd buy a million

0:35.5

iPhones and give them away in a Mr. Beast-style stunt that's sure to net me the most viewed YouTube video in history.

0:45.1

Well, we asked the president of the Rockefeller Foundation what advice he has for Elon Musk when it comes to using his billions of dollars to help humanity.

0:53.9

And that says Musk and Doge are taking a chainsaw to government aid spending. when it comes to using his billions of dollars to help humanity.

0:58.1

And that says Musk and Doge are taking a chainsaw to government aid spending.

0:59.2

That's next.

1:07.6

There's probably no bolder name in the history of U.S. business than Rockefeller.

1:15.6

That's John D. Rockefeller. He made his fortune in oil more than 100 years ago, and he eventually used some of his money to create a nonprofit organization that still bears his name to promote the well-being of humanity.

1:22.6

All these years later, Raj Shah is the man responsible for that legacy as the president of the Rockefeller Foundation.

1:29.3

That puts him on the front lines of trying to fill the gaps in foreign aid that evaporated

1:33.3

with the Trump administration's elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

1:40.3

We're trying to understand where the pockets of vulnerability are most aggressive, and we're trying to craft new solutions that countries can get behind, because at the end of the day, this takes public and private, and philanthropy can't fill the gap.

1:54.3

Shaw has special insight into the situation, having run USAID under the Obama administration.

2:01.1

The agency's work has been criticized by President Trump

2:04.1

and his ally Elon Musk.

2:06.6

They say it was wasteful and did not reflect America's values.

2:11.1

We have massive amounts of fraud that we caught.

2:14.5

I think we probably caught way over a lot of billions of dollars already in,

2:20.1

what, two weeks? And it's going to go to numbers that you're not going to believe.

2:25.4

Still, during his time at USAID, Shaw says he saw the power it had in shaping foreign policy

...

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