MAGA candidate begs voters not to investigate Trump's billionaire buddy

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to include a response from the White House.

A staunch MAGA Republican is begging Michigan voters to elect him senator by arguing that if they do not, one of President Donald Trump's billionaire allies might be investigated for allegedly illegal actions costing millions of lives.

In a fundraising appeal sent on Saturday and reported by the Detroit Metro Times on Wednesday, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) told voters that he would oppose any investigation of Trump's close ally and the world's richest man, X CEO Elon Musk. Rogers is the presumptive Republican nominee for that state's Senate race this year.

“When you stand with my Senate campaign today, you are directly shielding Elon Musk,” Rogers wrote. Begging for an “immediate, urgent contribution right now to protect Elon and save America," the Michigander described rumored Democratic plans to investigate the billionaire as a “socialist retaliation plot” that reminded him of “Soviet Russia and communist Cuba.” He argued that "they cannot control Elon, so they want to destroy him."

Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) are calling for Musk to be investigated in large part because of his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which implemented sweeping spending cuts that experts point out weakened America's national security apparatus and capacity to fight infectious diseases. DOGE particularly targeted the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was founded by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to provide foreign aid to impoverished nations in the form of assistance with global health, environmental protection, education and cultivating democratic institutions. The Trump administration has even tried to eliminate USAID entirely, although they cannot legally do so without congressional approval.

Experts who spoke exclusively to AlterNet described Musk's USAID cuts as extremely costly from a humanitarian standpoint.

"Elon Musk, singularly, as head of DOGE at the beginning of this administration, through his cuts has led to the deaths of millions," Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor and professor of medicine at the University of California–San Francisco, told AlterNet. "He was the executor of really dismantling USAID — essentially, the work to help the world's poorest children has been decimated by the world's richest man."

Gandhi added, "I have a project in South Africa, and I can stand absolutely firsthand witness since he also executed the cuts to South Africa — meaning on February 7th, the Trump administration put out an executive order that said we will give no assistance to South Africa because of their 'egregious actions,' like supporting the ICC [International Criminal Court] case against Israel, or they think South Africa is committing a white genocide – all of that means that there's no funding going toward South Africa, even his home country. And I have seen firsthand the effects on deaths, on advanced HIV, people dying of tuberculosis, not able to get HIV medications or preventative medications. Elon Musk is singularly responsible for the deaths of millions."

AlterNet also spoke with Sarah Nichols, a former implementing partner with USAID (pre-DOGE cuts) who worked on projects from Liberia in Africa to Guatemala in South America to the Pacific island nation of Indonesia (specifically the region Timor West). She witnessed firsthand the devastating human toll of Trump's and Musk's USAID cuts.

Like Gandhi, Nichols believes Musk should be investigated for his role in those cuts.

"He absolutely should, and that's just standard government protocol," Nichols told AlterNet. "I was actually in the audience of one of the recent hearings with a House committee and [Office of Management and Budget director] Russell Vought, and I think it was a Republican congressman who asked Russell Vought if there would be an after-action report on DOGE so that they could see what DOGE had accomplished and whether there was any cost savings. And Russell Vought said that they would not be doing any after-action report. And that is bizarre to me, as someone who used to work with the government, because every project always had an after-action report so that you could see whether there was improvement."

Reaching out to AlterNet after the article's publication, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said that “all Trump administration reforms across the executive branch have eliminated red tape while making our government more efficient and responsive to the agenda the President was elected to implement.”

Rogers' cling to Musk appears counter to good campaign tactics considering Musk's growing role as a political pariah among the voting public. Last year, Musk landed a ‘blowout’ loss, in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race that gave Democrats a court majority with a 4-3 lead -- which has only expanded in followup state elections.

Since 2025, Musk appeared to have pulled away from directly intervening in politics after voters' negative reaction in Wisconsin.