The exchange began Saturday when Jon Favreau, co-host of Pod Save America and former director of speechwriting for President Obama, criticized Musk on social media.
The US Agency for International Development has been one of the biggest targets so far of a campaign by President Donald Trump and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to slash the size of the federal government.
NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — An online battle between a Pod Save America host and Elon Musk resulted in some encouraging news Sunday for Edesia Nutrition , a Rhode Island nonprofit that has fed 26 million malnourished children .
“Kids will die because Elon Musk starved them of food we already paid for,” Favreau, who grew up in North Reading, Mass., and graduated from Holy Cross, wrote on X.
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Favreau was commenting on a CNN story about how Trump’s cuts to USAID were affecting a Georgia plant that, like Edesia, produces a fortified peanut-based paste to feed malnourished children.
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The CEO of MANA Nutrition told CNN that his warehouse held 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded “Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food” to be shipped out. He estimated that if USAID doesn’t pay for those boxes, he will have at least $10 million in wasted peanut butter pouches on his hands. And that doesn’t include an additional $14 million in reimbursements from the federal government that he was already waiting for.
In May 2024, USAID announced it would use $200 million in federal funds to ramp up production of a peanut-based paste both at the Georgia plant and at the Edesia plant in North Kingstown, R.I. That funding goes to programs and not just to producing food at those two plants.
On Sunday morning, Musk weighed in, insulting the podcast host but adding, “we will investigate whether this is real or not and fix it if it is.”
Three hours later, Musk posted, “The contract mentioned above with Edesia had already been restored last week and they should receive payment this coming week.”
Edesia Nutrition founder and CEO Navyn Salem responded, posting, “@elonmusk thank you for fixing this. Starving babies can’t wait. The @EdesiaNutrition team are eager to help the @DOGE team in making American AID great again with the highest level of efficiency.”
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Favreau responded, writing, “I just want to make sure that food gets to kids who need it. Contract above is with MANA nutrition in Georgia – as of yesterday the problem still wasn’t fixed.”
Musk’s post made no mention of the Georgia plant.
In early February, Rhode Island’s congressional delegation blasted the Trump administration for targeting USAID, noting the impact on Edesia, which produces a Ready-To-Use-Therapuetic food called Plumpy’Nut to treat severe malnutrition when children are weeks away from dying. At the time, Salem told the Globe, “We have product sitting in warehouses waiting for decisions to be made, and that correlates directly with young children’s lives.”
A few days later, Salem announced that USAID had rescinded a stop-work order for all Edesia products. “We are resuming all operations immediately as we know children caught in emergency humanitarian crises cannot wait for another day to pass,” she said.
On Sunday, Salem told the Globe that Edesia has not been paid by USAID for past orders yet, but it appears to be getting closer. She said shippers of the food products are struggling and at risk of shutting down. She said shipments of Edesia products were stopped on the road to New York on Thursday.
“We must fix every piece of the supply chain,” Salem said. “American farmers, American freight forwarders, American NGOs. We all have to work to make this life saving work possible. It’s a giant team effort.”
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Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.
Elon Musk, Pod Save America host, spar over aid program involving R.I. company
