The tiny government agency that blocked a group of DOGE staffers from entering its offices on Wednesday isn’t giving up the fight, even as Elon Musk’s foot soldiers race to access their systems.
The young, backpack-wearing men were turned away empty-handed on Wednesday after staff at the U.S. African Development Foundation refused to let them into the office following a tense standoff. The Washington Post reported that DOGE intended to fire USADF’s employees.
On Thursday, bosses at the agency, which has a small budget of just around $40 million, asked staff to work from home, a USADF employee told the Daily Beast. Staff from DOGE, who have since entered the building, have been trying to access the agency’s computer systems since this morning. It’s unclear how much progress they have made.
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The USADF staffer said that other employees have received calls and emails from DOGE and the Musk-controlled General Services Administration asking for help to access the system. One staffer received a call on their personal phone from a 28-year-old DOGE employee named Nate Cavanaugh, with no idea how the number was obtained.
The DOGE squad was accompanied by Pete Marocco, the State Department official tapped by Musk and Donald Trump to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development and eliminate foreign aid programs they disapprove of.
“The United States African Development Foundation offices were entered today by Mr. Peter Marocco and others who we do not believe are authorized to represent the agency,” the agency told the Daily Beast in an official statement. “USADF is fully complying with its statutory obligations. We will follow the law with the expectation that our staff will be treated with dignity and respect.”
But this doesn’t mean the underdog is throwing in the towel.
“People are definitely freaking out,” said the USADF employee, speaking with the Beast under the condition of anonymity. “I think most people are resigned to the fact that the agency is probably not gonna survive this, but we want to put up a resistance.”
Its head, Ward Brehm, filed a lawsuit on Thursday to block Musk and Trump’s push to eliminate the independent agency by way of an executive order.
USADF’s unique structure means that Trump can’t easily replace Brehm with a loyalist who will do his bidding, as has happened in other agencies. Its president and CEO can only be named by its board, who are subject to Senate confirmation.
The USADF employee, speaking under the condition of anonymity, told the Beast, “Not a lot of agencies are in the position that we are, where we don’t have a corrupted agency head. We can actually resist DOGE.”
With just around 50 employees, USADF is significantly smaller than USAID, which Musk has slashed to bits since Trump entered office.
Although the DOGE goons are hacking away at the agency’s computer systems, the staffer told the Beast that IT experts at the agency believe it will be an uphill battle to gain total access.
“They don’t really see a way that it would be possible without us giving explicit admin permissions,” the person said.
In a statement, a White House spokesperson claimed that DOGE’s takeover was legitimate.
“President Trump signed an executive order to reduce the federal bureaucracy, which reduced the USADF to its statutory minimum, and appointed Peter Marocco as acting Chairman of the Board,” said spokesperson Anna Kelly. “Entitled, rogue bureaucrats have no authority to defy executive orders by the President of the United States or physically bar his representatives from entering the agencies they run.”
In the lawsuit filed Thursday, however, Brehm argues that Trump doesn’t have the authority to fire staff at the USADF and install Marocco as its head.
Despite the turmoil, the agency has continued work on its mission to support and invest in activities that benefit underserved African communities—as best it can given the broader freezes on foreign aid.
“We get matching funds from African governments,” the staffer said. “There’s currently millions of dollars of other governments’ money sitting in our accounts overseas that we are not allowed to spend.”
It doesn’t help that the people standing in the way of the organization’s work are in many instances baby-faced college dropouts.
“We worked really hard to get into our positions, and it doesn’t feel great to have it just dismantled by these guys cherry picked by Elon Musk to do his bidding,” the staffer said.
Describing the USADF as “small but mighty,” the employee added, “We make a huge difference in people’s lives.”
Similar takeovers have already been led by Marocco and DOGE at USAID and the Latin America-serving Inter-American Foundation in recent weeks.
For now, the USADF is holding firm and showing no signs of rolling over.
