California Rep. Ro Khanna (D) said last month that Elon Musk had "possibly sentenced to death" 4.5 million children by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Musk called him a liar, threatened to sue, and suggested he belonged in prison.
Khanna was citing a 2025 study in The Lancet that claimed USAID prevented 91,839,663 deaths between 2001 and 2021 and projected more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030 if the cuts held. That study was cited in articles by NPR, the BBC, the Associated Press, NBC, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.
