Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla, has leveled serious accusations against the US Institute of Peace (USIP), claiming staff members deleted approximately one terabyte of financial records in an alleged attempt to hide financial misconduct.
According to Musk, the recently established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) managed to recover the deleted information thanks to superior technological expertise. “They deleted a terabyte of financial data to cover their crimes, but they don’t understand technology, so we recovered it,” Musk stated Tuesday in a post on his social media platform X.
Musk’s comments came in response to claims that the DOGE team struggled for days to gain access to USIP systems, where they reportedly uncovered “massive fraud, waste and abuse,” including alleged payments to Taliban and Iraqi entities. These accusations, however, have not been independently verified.
The statements follow recent actions by DOGE, which sent termination notices to USIP employees’ personal email accounts after most staff had already lost access to agency systems last Friday. This mass firing represents the latest development in President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to reduce government size.
In his social media post, Musk also offered a cynical perspective on government institutions, suggesting that “Any government institution is most likely to be the opposite of its name” – implying that the US Institute of Peace was not actually advancing peaceful objectives.
The USIP, established by Congress in 1984 as an independent national institute, has traditionally focused on conflict prevention and resolution in international affairs. Neither the institute nor its representatives have yet responded publicly to Musk’s allegations.
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