Washington DC - USAID on Tuesday announced it was placing its staff in the country and around the world on administrative leave as it moved to recall employees from overseas postings.

The agency said in a statement on its website – which reappeared Tuesday after going dark over the weekend – that the staff leave will begin shortly before midnight on February 7.

The administrative leave will hit "all USAID direct hire personnel... with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs."

"Thank you for your service," the statement read.

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The move is part of President Donald Trump's and his far-right billionaire ally Elon Musk's radical drive to dismantle large swaths of the US government, which has shocked Washington and caused angry protests from Democrats and the human rights community.

The aid arm of US foreign policy, USAID funds health and emergency programs in around 120 countries, including the world's poorest regions.

Musk has called USAID "a viper's nest of radical-left marxists who hate America" and has vowed to shut it down.

Among other criticisms, he claims USAID does "rogue CIA work" and even "funded bioweapon research, including Covid-19, that killed millions of people."

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO – who has massive contracts with the US government and was the biggest financial backer of Trump's campaign – said he had personally cleared the unprecedented move with the president.

As of 2023, the most recent year for which full data was available, the top three recipients of aid from USAID were Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Jordan, according to the Congressional Research Service. Other top recipients of aid included the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Syria.