Turns Out USAID Funding May Have Caused a Lot of Death and Destruction

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After Ro Khanna accused Elon Musk of killing 4.5 million children with DOGE-led USAID cuts, only to fold like a cheap shirt after Musk threatened a defamation suit, someone decided to use the study Khanna cited as his source to see how many deaths USAID funding caused.

Guess what. It's a lot.

.@elonmusk .@DataRepublican
I made a paper using the Lancet study’s methodology.
The USAID Mortality Multiplier: A Counterfactual Analysis of Regime-Enabled Excess Deaths, 2001–2025
We apply fixed-effects Poisson regression to panel data from the 133 countries in the original… pic.twitter.com/7uuBTkL2hy
— G. K. Masterson (@GKMasterson) June 23, 2026

The entire post reads:

The USAID Mortality Multiplier: A Counterfactual Analysis of Regime-Enabled Excess Deaths, 2001–2025
We apply fixed-effects Poisson regression to panel data from the 133 countries in the original Lancet study. Our key independent variable is annual USAID disbursements per capita. We control for the usual suspects — GDP, literacy, doctors per thousand — but add one critical covariate the original paper omitted: an index of left-wing governance strength, scored from 0 to 1 based on the proportion of cabinet positions held by self-identified socialists, communists, or Peronists during each year.
The model reveals a robust positive association: each additional dollar of USAID per capita is associated with 47.3 excess deaths per 100,000 population under left-wing administrations. Using the same microsimulation framework as the Lancet paper, we project that USAID’s total spending from 2001 to 2025 enabled approximately 187 million excess deaths, of which 68 million were children under five.
Our counterfactual — what if USAID had never existed? — shows that 68 million kids would still be alive today.
The confidence intervals are wide, the causal assumptions are heroic, and the governance index is completely made up. But hey, it matches their methods exactly.

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Excellent work.

USAID: Using the methodology the Lancet used to determine cuts to USAID's funding resulted in four million deaths, @GKMasterson determined that USAID funding itself resulted in 187 million deaths. Either the Lancet's methodology is bogus or USAID has killed more humans than the… https://t.co/6jiOUaO7mn pic.twitter.com/hmBGDdm7Z0
— @amuse (@amuse) June 23, 2026

Even Musk took note.

By their own logic https://t.co/iWnpSj2zW0
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 23, 2026

Their own logic.

Leftists squealing about millions dead due to USAID cuts will come up with 100 arguments against this and never admit that it just shows how utterly moronic and self serving the methodology for coming up with these ridiculous numbers is.
In short: its all complete BS but they'll… https://t.co/qJV3HAO5F5
— Guy Swann (@TheGuySwann) June 23, 2026

Yes, it is all complete BS. But it helps advance the narrative, so they run with it.

The creation of USAID led to the deaths of 68 million children under 5, according to a new study conducted using the same methods as the controversial study referenced by Ro Khanna.
68 million > 4.5 million right Ro? https://t.co/AFzvwVaqaN
— Gator Gar (@gatorgar) June 23, 2026

Looking at you, Ro Khanna.

See, this is a two-way street. One study can claim DOGE cuts led to 4.5 million deaths, but applying that same methodology shows that USAID funding may have led to ten times as many deaths. For some reason, we doubt the same people citing the first study will be eager to talk about the second set of numbers.

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