Elon Musk’s opposition to USAID seems unhinged, like a drunken fool trying to launch rockets at perceived monsters under his own bed. The casual observer might wonder why, what’s so special about USAID to the man throwing Hitler salutes at his political rallies?

The emotional outbursts are in fact not just ideological (white supremacist false notions of “efficiency” meant to remove all non-white power in America), they are deeply personal and tied to memories of watching international pressure dismantle his family’s system of South African racist power and privilege.

To put it simply, the military formation of Green Berets by President JFK had a civilian counterpart called USAID. Quiet professional experts were deployed as “boots on the ground” during Cold War decolonization, to push and spread democracy around the world. USAID very visibly helped bring apartheid to an end around 1988, which just happens to be the year Elon Musk and his family abruptly fled South Africa – illegally immigrated to America to launder his family’s apartheid fortunes through tech startups like PayPal and so… he says now he will kill USAID (after mocking suicide of a Green Beret)

As a historian, let me break down a crucial yet completely overlooked context for what belatedly is being recognized as the most dangerous national security threat to America causing its biggest breach in history.

When we analyze potential targets in America of white supremacist groups, particularly those with South African connections, we need to understand why and how USAID holds very special significance in their ideology even today.

Consider this: A white South African born in 1971 would have watched USAID systematically dismantle perceived white racial dominance throughout their teenage years. It wasn’t just about the money, given USAID successfully built Black power structures that directly challenged Musk’s family “whites-only” position of authority:

1. Economic: USAID funded Black-owned businesses and labor unions
2. Legal: Provided resources for anti-apartheid legal defense
3. Educational: Bypassed Bantu education to create alternative schooling
4. Media: Supported independent Black press

Imagine Elon as a teenager being raised in the bubble of immoral apartheid privileges his grandfather had specially curated by fleeing Canada after Hitler lost WWII, watching USAID methodically fund democratic and freedom organizations his family labeled as “terrorists” for helping Blacks.

[Elon’s mother and family] came to South Africa from Canada because they sympathised with the Afrikaner government. They used to support Hitler and all that sort of stuff.

Musk’s family faced a harsh reality of international sanctions. Hitler-worshipping Nazi-adjacent violent direct threats to society no longer got a free ride. Even the horribly racist President Ronald Reagan no longer could help them (his pro-apartheid disinformation-riddled veto overridden), as USAID channelled millions into democratic and equitable community development of South Africa.

Note: H.R. 4868, which passed over the President’s veto on [1986] October 2, was assigned Public Law No. 99 – 440.

1984-1985: USAID launches its first major programs in South Africa, initially providing about $10 million annually, focused on scholarships for Black students and support for civil rights organizations.

1986 as crucial year (Elon aged 15):

• The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act passes in October overriding Reagan
• USAID funding increases significantly
• Programs expand to include legal aid for anti-apartheid activists
• Support begins for Black labor unions and community organizations

1987-1989: USAID becomes increasingly visible as it:

• Funds Black community newspapers
• Supports alternative education programs outside the Bantu education system
• Provides grants to civil rights organizations documenting apartheid abuses

Funds Black community newspapers?
ZOMG criminals!

God forbid what Elon Musk thought when he discovered Black Twitter! His family couldn’t stand to live in a country with Black newspapers. Do you wonder anymore why he would buy a giant media platform in America to rebrand it with obvious Nazi swastikas, fill it with Nazi hate speech, then use it to pump out Nazi merch and Hitler salutes?

From a threat modeling perspective, the 1980s USAID success in ending the white supremacist government in Africa creates a uniquely personal motivation for those enemies of America. We’re not just talking about abstract ideological opposition. We’re dealing with individuals like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk who view USAID as the American organization that “betrayed” their “superior” race during their formative years.

This historical context makes USAID a very high-value symbolic target, particularly for individuals now rapidly amassing abrupt positions of national authority that have all the hallmarks of an African coup. Their grudge isn’t just some political or economic “efficiency” story of 2025 since it is driven by teenage memories of being denied a future of white nationalist state plunder, overtly connected to USAID’s strategic intervention.

Risk mitigation strategy needs to account for this historical trauma-driven targeting by Elon Musk and his mercenary force presently compromising and dismantling federal systems.

Modern national security experts must consider that American adversaries seizing control of federal government don’t just see USAID as generic targeting, but as a decades-old personal enemy they want to destroy using highly symbolic revenge theatrics.

Those who study history see the signs of Nazism most clearly in Elon Musk’s words, behavior and actions. Every time someone says “but why self harm” or “makes no sense” about Musk’s plans for mass death and institutional suicide, I suspect they aren’t familiar enough with 1930s Nazi Germany:

“We now seek a science that forms the whole human character in accordance with the great racial and political task before us.” [Ernst Krieck, head of Frankfurt University] added: “We know we are on a new road in science, provided for us by our character, fate and history. We know that sooner or later all other nations will have to follow us on this road.” “Never before,” editorialized the New York Times days later, “did a great institution of learning joyously participate in its own degradation.”

As a historian, let me spell it out as clearly as possible. Nazi Germany’s 1933 “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” had made such suicidal plans possible because three years earlier it set up a “DOGE”:

• Enabled mass removal of civil servants
• Centralized control under party loyalty systems
• Used “efficiency” as justification for purges
• Bypassed existing administrative protections

Hitler’s Reich Radio Company and Postal Ministry gained control over every area of government through seizing telegraph, telephone and broadcast systems. Hitler’s OG of “DOGE” thus went around forcing out skilled technicians and implementing ‘modernized’ standards – creating a centralized system of surveillance and control, weaponized against any resistance.

Perhaps enough Americans still don’t understand what it means that Elon Musk was raised in South Africa by a Canadian family that fled as a designated national security threat, to continue Hitler’s mission after he killed himself. Here’s how Elon’s father described it:

[Elon’s mother and family] came to South Africa from Canada because they sympathised with the Afrikaner government. They used to support Hitler and all that sort of stuff.

An apartheid boy raised on Nazism who abruptly lands a fake top job in American government is of course aiming to inflict rapid institutional brain damage, known in Nazi circles as the old saying “boots to the head“.

Musk said that “USAID is a criminal organization.”

“Time for it to die,” he posted on X.

[…]

Other top Trump officials, such as Stephen Miller… [has framed the “crime” as having more than one party,] accusing its workforce of being overwhelmingly Democrats.

And so the White House seems officially to be repeating 1933 Nazi German procedures. They are overtly stating that Americans in organizations of democracy who do not immediately adhere to a 1930s vision of single party system – loyalty to Der Führer Musk – should literally be killed.

The system of control is in process of being deployed right now. The U.S. government doesn’t seem able to stop the criminalization of thought, the breach of confidential systems. An active hunt for any resistance to Musk implementing absolute tyrannical control, the critical next descent into Nazism, already has been said out loud.

According to sources, personnel from the Musk-created office first physically tried to access the USAID headquarters in Washington, DC, and were stopped. The DOGE personnel demanded to be let in and threatened to call US Marshals to be allowed access, two of the sources said. […] Katie Miller, whom Trump named to DOGE in December, on Sunday appeared to confirm that DOGE personnel had accessed classified information.

In a functioning democracy, such an overt and obnoxious replay of a Nazi “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” would not be possible. Rogue American Executive branch agents trying to commit crimes (e.g. remember Watergate?) would logically be classified immediately as active threats to American national security and not only stopped, but arrested.

Americans are watching Elon Musk run the Hitler playbook with American government IT systems, justified with the same Hitler claims of “efficiency” while eliminating any and all institutional security protections against the next Hitler.

In 2022 a swarm of Russian helicopters descended on Ukraine’s Hostomel Airport on the false pretense of being “liberators” – because a capitol city nearby was in Putin’s disinformation crosshairs. They were there to “denazify” Ukraine, to “rescue” it from “corrupt influences,” to “restore” it to its rightful place in the Russian world. The invasion wasn’t painted as invasion, but rather to be seen as “strong men” performing a cleansing of “enemies within.”

Obviously that plan to ignite a fraudulent civil war failed, leading to Russia declaring war on Ukraine instead, but does any of this sound eerily familiar in 2025 America?

Just as Putin planned to install non-Ukrainian loyalists into power while claiming they represent “true Ukraine”, America faces its own imported strongmen claiming to represent “true America” – a South African tech billionaire positioning himself to reshape American institutions while declaring himself more American than Americans (because… he’s a white man).

False Narrative Underlying Power Capture

Putin’s framing of Ukraine as riddled with internal enemies mirrors today’s American rhetoric about “deep state” operatives, “woke ideology,” and the need to “take back our country” from diversity (DEI).

Just as Putin labeled Ukrainian defenders as “Nazi sympathizers,” we see American institutional defenders branded unfairly as “corrupt ideologues” or targeted with McCarthy-era hateful phrases like “diversity hire incompetents.”

This is all about the chess moves well known in information warfare circles, with Russia attempting to drive Americans into a tactical trap:

• Resist slower: End up like Prague in 1968
• Resist faster: Get painted as proving the “enemies within” narrative
• Either way: Institutional collapse is being setup to be blamed on the institutional defenders

Remember Prague?

Notably, Ukrainian remember well what happened in the 1960s, the 1970s… Czechoslovakia’s response to Soviet invasion shows the cost of hesitation, allowing for asymmetry in power to choke off resistance even at national scale.

By the time Czech citizens in 1968 began organizing resistance, the Soviets already had landed and expanded:

• Seized control of key infrastructure
• Replaced key personnel
• Established new command structures
• Made institutional capture irreversible

The tragedy of Prague wasn’t just that resistance was slow to materialize compared with “insiders” seizing control – it’s that early resistance might have been labeled “anti-Soviet provocation” anyway. They faced the same tactical trap but chose a form of paralysis that undermined their own chances of safety.

How Ukraine Exposed the Paper Putin

Ukraine masterfully found a way through the double-bind. Arguably, because they knew their Soviet history so well, they flipped the script on Putin’s geriatric attack plans, refusing to accept foreign-born loyalists as legitimate representatives of Ukrainian interests.

Similarly, American institutions must now resist foreign-born billionaires claiming sole authority – being corrupt and fraudulent strong white men – to define American values.

Belarus also shows how this playbook works, given foreign-backed figures claim deeper patriotism than natives, while systematically replacing local institutional knowledge with imported loyalists. Sound familiar, Tesla shareholders? The founders of Tesla were abruptly pushed out and replaced with Elon Musk and his cousins, right?

The Ukrainian defense of integrity and anti-corruption model thus offers crucial lessons:

1. Institutional Resilience
   • Built redundant systems that couldn’t be easily centralized
   • Maintained professional networks outside official channels
   • Documented everything to preserve institutional memory
   • Created backup communication systems
   • Prioritized protecting critical databases and infrastructure
2. Smart Resistance
   • Focused on defending systems, not winning rhetorical battles
   • Built broad coalitions that transcended political labels
   • Maintained professional standards even when branded as corrupt
   • Created distributed leadership to prevent decapitation strikes
   • Protected technical infrastructure from both capture and collapse

Threading the Dictator’s Needle

Resistance to the end of freedom and democracy in America, given today’s context, therefore requires:

1. Preemptive Protection
   • Secure critical databases before they can be compromised
   • Create backup systems for essential functions
   • Document institutional procedures and safeguards
   • Build professional networks that can survive purges
   • Establish clear protocols for protecting critical systems
2. Strategic Response
   • Focus on protecting functions, not fighting narratives
   • Maintain professional standards as proof against “incompetence” claims
   • Build cross-institutional support networks
   • Create distributed rather than centralized resistance
   • Preserve technical expertise and institutional knowledge
3. Resilient Systems
   • Design systems that can’t be easily centralized
   • Create redundancies in critical functions
   • Maintain independent communication channels
   • Document everything to prevent memory holes
   • Build coalition networks that transcend political labels

False Choice Seduction

The tactical trap offered by Putin and then Musk, as enabled by their puppet Trump, presents a false choice between resistance and survival. Ukraine proved how to take on the “inside” threat and do both by:

• Focusing on functional rather than symbolic resistance
• Building resilient systems rather than rigid hierarchies
• Maintaining professional standards as a form of defense
• Creating distributed networks rather than central points of failure
• Protecting critical infrastructure while avoiding escalation traps

Three years after Ukraine won its Hostomel moment, America stands facing the same threat but with a crucial difference – we can learn from both Ukraine’s success and Prague’s tragedy. The choice isn’t between resistance and accommodation, but between smart resistance and fatal hesitation.

The “enemies within” narrative has been building for years either way. Elon Musk tweets “civil war is coming” like twenty times a day, as if trying to invoke it on his own. The only question is whether we’ll have preserved our institutions against a South African immigrant who rushes to replace American government with a cabal of young Seymour-like sycophants.

Time is short. The Tesla vehicles are in the streets, the SpaceX spy satellites are overhead, SpaceX rockets descending. Will we protect our infrastructure, or wait until protection becomes impossible?