Franklin Wanyama in Kenya told us how upon hearing the news he became scared of no longer receiving the pills that keep his #HIV suppressed.
“When I got this news, I first went to the facility very fast to get at least more medication if possible. Because now I am worried, will the medication end?”

Franklin is one of roughly 20 million people worldwide whose HIV medication is paid for by #PEPFAR, a program started under George W. Bush. It has put more than 110 billion dollars towards ending HIV/AIDS and is credited with saving more than 25 million lives.

Franklin also worked at the clinic educating about HIV prevention and combatting stigma, one of thousands of locals whose jobs depend on US foreign aid.
He told us about the shock of suddenly losing his livelihood. “It just happened abruptly. At the end of the day, it has shattered my everything.”

Sibongile Tshabalala, an HIV activist in South Africa, told us about her fear that this would erase progress: “our fear is that we are going to lose more people again because of HIV-related illnesses. My fear is that we will have more HIV infections if PrEP is not available and there is no education”

We talked to Johannes Plate in Sudan, where people are in the midst of a genocide and a famine. He told us that at his organization, which receives USAID funds, 57 out of 73 people had to be put on unpaid leave immediately. They couldn’t even pay them
for the month of January which was almost over.

Every one of these people had families dependent on their income, says Plate. And some projects intended to build resilience and ensure food for the next year are now in peril. If these don’t go ahead that would have dramatic consequences not just this year but in the coming years.

We also talked to Jeremy Konyndyk, who served as the director of #USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance under Obama and who immediately mentioned Sudan as well:
“If there is anywhere on Earth where you would want to keep the humanitarian presence, it's there. It's all being pulled down and pulled back. So this is just pure destruction.”

The reason we named the episode “People will die” is that every single person we talked to made it clear that this will happen, indeed that it is happening already.
Konyndyk told us:
“This is going to kill a lot of people. It's going to kill a lot of people for whom US humanitarian aid keeps them alive. It's going to kill a lot of people for whom US Global Health Support saves their lives. …
It is going to kill, - literally, no hyperbole, no exaggeration - it's going to kill many, many people.”

Konyndyk:
“Just from the HIV programs alone, that's potentially a death toll in the millions and and it's just happening because of a bullshit disinformation campaign by Elon Musk and and the cover that that gives to a very small group of people in the State Department to destroy this institution.”

And that is the long and the short of it:
Whatever disinfo Musk spreads on X, the richest man on earth, ensconced in his cocoon of privilege, is taking away livelihoods and access to life saving medications from some of the poorest, most vulnerable people on earth.