On Monday, Marocco and members of Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) arrived at the [Inter-American Foundation’s] headquarters in Washington. When the meeting ended, staff received an email that made it official: Marocco was now in charge, the employee said.
The Doge team members, which included Nate Cavanaugh and Ethan Shaotran, remained in the office for several more hours, after requesting access to the IAF database as well as the names and emails of the organization’s grantees, according to the employee and a person familiar with the situation.
By Monday evening, most of the agency’s 37 staffers had been placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately, the employee said. Two former employees confirmed the moves.
IAF has 425 active projects as of October 2024. According to the worker, all local contractors were cancelled and grantees have received notifications of terminations.
On Tuesday, Doge posted on its “wall of receipts” that it had cancelled several grants at the agency, citing claimed savings from cancellations, though many of those grants were multi-year grants already partially paid out and large portions were funded by counterpart organizations.
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