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The head of DOGE has said Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are essentially “radical left crazy people talking to themselves”
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), called for US state-run media outlets Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America (VOA) to be shut down on Sunday. Musk said the outlets burn through taxpayer money and are no longer relevant.
Radio Liberty (RL) started broadcasting on March 1, 1953, specifically targeting audiences in the Soviet Union. The two organizations merged to become RFE/RL in 1976, combining their operations.
VOA was established in the 1940s to counter Nazi propaganda and shifted its focus to the Soviet Union in 1947. It continues to be funded by Congress and its management is directly controlled by the US government. The US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees both VOA and RFE/RL, is a US federal agency.
Musk was responding to comments by Richard Grenell, a special envoy for US President Donald Trump, who criticized the outlets on Sunday on X.
“Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are media outlets paid for by the American taxpayers. It is state-owned media. These outlets are filled with far-left activists. I’ve worked with these reporters for decades. It’s a relic of the past. We don’t need government-paid media outlets,” Grenell stated.
Musk responded on X: “Yes, shut them down. Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy). Nobody listens to them anymore. It’s just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.”
Originally, RFE/RL was called ‘Radio Liberation from Bolshevism’. The station was renamed ‘Radio Liberation’ in 1956, and later adopted its current name, Radio Liberty, following a policy shift that emphasized “liberalization” over “liberation.”
Russia designated RFE/RL a ‘foreign agent’ in 2020 and banned it in 2022, citing “the publication of materials that contain false information” about the Ukraine conflict. Its subsidiary, Current Time – a joint venture with VOA – was blacklisted in Russia in 2024.
In recent years, both Musk and Grenell have voiced strong opposition to government funding of media organizations, arguing that taxpayer money should not be used to support them.
Musk has criticized federal payments to media organizations such as Politico, the Associated Press, and the New York Times, deeming them inefficient uses of taxpayer money. Musk’s team is working on canceling these payments. According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the government paid more than $8 million for Politico subscriptions.
Similarly, Grenell has condemned government spending on media subscriptions, echoing Musk’s stance that this funding should be terminated immediately. Grenell posted on X: “The U.S. government must stop paying for media subscriptions. Now.”
VOA had a budget of $267.5 million for 2024, while RFE/RL operated with $142.2 million. The USAGM requested $950 million in total funding for 2025. It claims it reaches a weekly audience of 427 million people in 64 languages across more than 100 countries.
