OREANDA-NEWS   The head of the Department of Public Administration Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, sees the need to close a number of US administrative services in order to reduce the country's costs, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Thursday.

"I think we need to get rid of entire agencies and not keep them," Musk said at the World Summit of Governments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

He compared such agencies to plants, noting that "if you don't uproot a weed, it will easily grow back."

Musk cited the example of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is considered to "support democracy," but expressed doubts about the work of this agency. "Have they achieved much in terms of democracy?" Musk said.

He added that US President Donald Trump "is not particularly interested in the affairs of other countries," while acknowledging that "the United States used to push other countries on international issues."

The US federal authorities consider USAID to be an ineffective organization. Earlier in February, Trump called USAID specialists "sleepwalkers" who spent budget funds on ineffective aid programs to other countries. In addition, Trump suggested that the agency's leadership de facto supported the Democratic Party by financing the activities of a number of media outlets close to it.

At the initiative of the US President, USAID programs have been frozen. At the same time, Trump himself promised to close the agency.