Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Elon Musk, the South African-born U.S. billionaire and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), recently took to X (formerly Twitter) to call for the shutting down of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, both of which are funded by the U.S. government, reported Xinhua.
His comments came after Richard Grenell, the U.S. special envoy for special missions, criticized these media outlets for being taxpayer-funded and filled with “far-left activities.” Wrote Grenell:
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.
Musk backed up Grenell’s comments, saying, “Yes, close them. Europe is free now (not counting the stifling bureaucracy). Nobody listens to them anymore. They are just crazy radical leftists talking to themselves while burning American taxpayer money. That’s about $1 billion a year wasted.”
VOA, established in 1942, is the oldest and largest U.S. international broadcaster. It creates content in 48 languages across digital platforms, TV, and radio, including a special service for Zimbabwe called Studio 7, which has been on air since 2003.
Studio 7 is an important source of independent news for Zimbabweans, offering broadcasts in Shona, Ndebele, and English. It covers a wide range of topics, including politics, civil society, health, sports, and the arts.
If the threat to shut down VOA goes through, it could leave over two dozen Zimbabwean journalists in Washington without jobs.
Elon Musk has also criticised federal funding for media organisations like Politico, The Associated Press, and The New York Times, arguing that such spending is an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars.
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