KINSHASA — I came to the Democratic Republic of Congo to mourn the passing of a family member, not to meditate on the sins of Elon Musk, or on his genius.
But there’s no getting away from the man, certainly not in Kinshasa.
In the air-conditioned comfort of an Airbnb near the Congo River, I read that Musk’s Starlink space-based broadband service is now available in the DRC. Hundreds of isolated communities will gain access to life-changing and perhaps lifesaving internet services.
I’d appreciate this all the more if Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency hadn’t also consigned many Congolese to needless deaths through Musk’s campaign to eliminate US foreign aid.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is as large as all of western Europe. It’s populated by more than 100 million people, with 17 million in metro Kinshasa, a sooty, sandy megacity of barely-paved streets, open sewers, and lean, desperate people.
Broadband isn’t top-of-mind for most Congolese. The great majority of the people here get by on less than $3 a day, and about two-thirds don’t have online access.
For those who do, it’s usually lousy. I settled for a 4G connection that delivered 20-megabit downloads when the wind was right.
But in May, the Congolese government gave SpaceX the go-ahead to switch on in Kinshasa and nationwide.
Starlink’s network of about 8.000 low-orbiting satellites can deliver 100 megabits or more, not just to cushy urban apartments, but to offices, churches, schools, cyber cafes, and community centers. Without running optical fiber through urban slums or untracked forests, millions more Congolese could get online and become full participants in the global economy.
But Musk doesn’t give a damn about the Congolese afflicted by a horde of awful diseases. Indeed, he has done everything in his power to hasten their demise.
HIV is common in the DRC — about 21,000 new cases each year. Tuberculosis is also common here, and malaria. There’s even leprosy.
And for decades, the US Agency for International Development has funded their medical treatments. In 2024 alone, the United States provided $838 million in aid to the DRC, much of it humanitarian aid for victims of the brutal conflict in eastern Congo. About $256 million of this goes to medical assistance. The Congolese generally don’t get cash; instead, the United States makes bulk purchases of medications and vaccines, which are then distributed to hospitals and clinics.
A recent study by the nonprofit Center for Global Development found that USAID activities in the DRC have been saving about 136,000 lives each year.
But in his role as adviser to President Trump, the same Elon Musk who built SpaceX has cheerfully overseen the destruction of USAID. As Musk tweeted in early February, “We spent the weekend feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper. Could [have] gone to some great parties. Did that instead.”
The DOGE crew instantly halted hundreds of USAID programs in dozens of countries. Patients seeking renewals of their prescriptions were turned away, while warehouses full of already-purchased medicines sit unused.
On July 1, USAID ceased to exist. The State Department will take over any of its functions the Trump administration deems worthy. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio has vowed that any programs that deliver life-saving assistance will be preserved.
But I had my doubts. So I reached out to Andre Ndambi, a Kinshasa correspondent for the Voice of America until March, when the Trump administration gutted that agency as well. Ndambi got me on the phone with Danny Cipaka, a doctor at Kinshasa’s Kitambo General Hospital.
My French is nearly nonexistent despite months with the language learning app Duolingo, but Andre and my adopted son Mbumba, who’s fluent in French and Lingala, a Bantu language spoken in Congo, acted as translators.
“We spent almost 3 months without medication for patients suffering from tuberculosis,” Cipaka said, “which meant that many patients who were already under treatment came back with relapses . . . We recorded two cases of death in the last two months due to the lack of tuberculosis medications.”
That’s two human beings charged to Mr. Musk’s account, with plenty more to come.
Brooke Nichols, an associate professor of public health at Boston University has set up a website to track the carnage. As of July 3, it estimates that about 30,000 tuberculosis patients worldwide have died due to the funding cuts, and about 70,000 people with HIV.
Her math might be wrong, of course. Maybe the toll is only one-tenth this large, or just 10,000 dead. Feel better?
Despite Rubio’s promises, Cipaka said the aid to his hospital has not been restored. As a result, the Congolese government is shifting funds to cover the shortfall while hoping that US funding will eventually resume.
Cipaka’s comment raises a crucial point: If the DRC government is capable of doing more, why is US aid needed at all?
It’s easy to make excuses for this ravaged nation. It suffered for decades under Belgium’s barbarous colonial rule. Then came Cold War meddling by the United States, and, most recently, the dreadful east Congo war, the deadliest conflict since World War II — a war that may finally be ended thanks to a peace deal recently brokered by the Trump administration.
But none of this excuses the DRC’s endemic corruption. According to Transparency International’s rating of perceived national corruption, the DRC ranks near the bottom — 123rd out of 180 countries. (Squeaky-clean Denmark is number one, with the United States at a mediocre 28.) So much DRC government revenue is stolen that there’s little left for things that matter.
Garbage removal, for instance. Great heaps of the stuff pile up at street corners, an obvious menace to public health. Even a poor nation could hire a few hundred men and a few dozen trucks to haul it away. But it never happens. I’ve been to Kinshasa four times and the garbage is always there to greet me.
It’s almost enough to make me sympathize with Musk. Some tough love from the United States might make sense. Phasing out USAID programs over several years could goad the DRC toward reform.
But Trump and Musk wanted a budgetary shock treatment. They’re delighted by outrage over the aid cuts, because it makes them sound bigger than they are. USAID’s entire 2024 expenditures were a mere three-tenths of 1 percent of the federal budget. But never mind. Trump’s superfans love it when he makes people suffer.
Musk is now backing away from the Trump administration, and just in time. His electric car company Tesla is in crisis; his next-gen SpaceX rockets keep blowing up. And Musk’s plan to save the taxpayers $2 trillion has ended in utter failure.
But if making the world a more miserable place was part of the plan, Musk’s having the best year of his life.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeTechLab.