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Bono’s ‘300,000 Deaths’ Projection Fuels Dispute Over USAID Cuts

Elon Musk has rejected the death estimates as false despite growing concern over USAID’s stranded food supplies during ongoing court blocks of its funding halt.

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 17: Irish singer of U2 Bono poses during a photocall for the film 'Bono: Stories of Surrender' at the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France on May 17, 2025. (Photo by Mustafa Yalcin/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Bono at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 17, 2025, in Cannes, France.
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Bono appeared on Joe Rogan's well-liked podcast broadcast on Friday.

Overview

  • The Trump administration ordered a halt to most foreign aid funding in January and attempted to dismantle USAID, but courts have temporarily blocked the funding freeze.
  • During his May 30 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Bono cited a Boston University model projecting 300,000 deaths—including 200,000 children—attributed to the abrupt USAID cuts and described 50,000 tons of aid food rotting in warehouses.
  • Elon Musk, who stepped down this week as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, took to X to call Bono a “liar/idiot” and asserted that “zero people have died.”
  • Joe Rogan acknowledged waste and fraud within USAID but argued that the Trump administration’s cuts were too hasty and urged a targeted approach to preserve life-saving programs while preventing abuse.
  • Researchers emphasize that Brooke Nichols’s 300,000 figure is a projection based on modeling assumptions rather than confirmed fatalities and note uncertainties over mitigation efforts and actual funding flows.