Elon Musk’s New USAID Stooge Once Threatened to Gut a Girl

Jeremy Lewin, the newly appointed head of the remaining shreds of USAID, has a history of violent outbursts and making racist remarks, according to an exclusive report from Rolling Stone.

Before Lewin was installed as the agency’s chief operating officer earlier this month, he was DOGE’s team lead overseeing the gutting of USAID. Six people told Rolling Stone that when Lewin attended Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, a prestigious high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he expressed explicitly racist views.

“I have a vivid memory of him telling me that he believed non-white people were inherently of ‘lower value’ than white people,” said one former acquaintance who spoke with Rolling Stone. That person described Lewin as “blatantly racist.”

Others who knew him then said that he espoused ideas such as the “great replacement theory” and claimed that white people were biologically more intelligent than people of other races.

One former acquaintance told Rolling Stone that news of Lewin’s appointment gave them “chills.”

“I thought he had no empathy. He was fashy, misogynistic, [and] really believed Western civilization was superior. I can see him enjoying taking away humanitarian programs in Africa. It’s frightening. It’s like letting Hannibal Lecter mind kids or something,” they told the magazine.

In school, Lewin also had a penchant for violent outbursts, and allegedly threw things at other students. Outside of school he was violent too. One girl, who was a minor at the time, told police that she feared for her life after Lewin threatened her with a knife at a party, asking why “he shouldn’t gut [her] and cut [her] right now,” according to police reports.

The 18-year-old Lewin had a hearing scheduled on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, but it was ultimately canceled for unknown reasons, according to Rolling Stone.

Lewin went on to attend Dartmouth University and Harvard Law School, before clerking for Judge Judith Rogers, a progressive who was the first Black woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

His new position at USAID was announced as U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang barred DOGE from taking any actions at the agency without permission of a USAID official, ruling that DOGE’s efforts to shutter the agency likely violated the U.S. Constitution. Lewin’s appointment was likely an effort to skirt the order.

After the government asked the judge to exempt Lewin from the order, the judge amended his order to specifically include Lewin. Chuang said his order purposefully included “all individuals with a past or present affiliation” with DOGE to “address the most likely perpetrators of constitutional violations.”

“Excluding Lewin from this class would undermine these purposes,” Chuang wrote in his order.

Still, Lewin sent out a memo Friday announcing that the USAID would terminate the vast majority of its employees on either July 1 or September 2, likely violating Chuang’s direct order.