False claims that USAID paid Jeffrey Epstein spread online

"Do you wonder why Democrats are freaking out about spending cuts? Jeffrey Epstein was getting payments from USAID! and who else?!" says a February 5, 2025 post on X.

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Screenshot from X taken February 13, 2025

Similar posts spread widely across X and other platforms including Instagram as Trump and Elon Musk, tasked by the president with overhauling the federal government, announced the administration's decision to dismantle USAID and put almost all of its more than 10,000 employees on leave.

The agency has for decades funded health and emergency programs as well as democracy promotion initiatives in about 120 countries, including the world's poorest regions. Trump, Musk and his allies have alleged the agency is rife with "fraud" but provided little evidence to support their allegations.

Online claims that USAID's massive spending included payments to the convicted sex offender Epstein are also false.

Different Epstein

A search of USAspending.gov, an official open data source compiling federal spending information, shows no USAID funds funneled to the late financier.

The posts spreading online are based on a screenshot, supposedly of government spending records, that shows a "Jeffrey E Epstein" was paid $265,915 for his role as a director at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in the 2023 tax year.

But the notorious and disgraced Epstein died by suicide in 2019 -- four years earlier -- after authorities charged him with federal sex trafficking.

Keyword searches revealed a different man with the same name serves on the board of directors for the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, according to the man's LinkedIn profile and Kaiser Permanente's 2023 annual report (archived here, here and here).

That Epstein, who goes by Jeff, is not the same person who died in 2019, photos and videos on his LinkedIn account show.

He works for Bessemer Venture Partners, chairs the board of directors at the cloud communications company Twilio and lectures at Stanford University's business school, according to his LinkedIn page and online bios (archived here, here and here).

Kathleen Chambers, a spokesperson for Kaiser Permanente, pointed AFP to Jeff Epstein's LinkedIn profile spelling out his role with Kaiser.

"Jeff Epstein, who is a member of the Board of Directors, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc, and Hospitals is not the same person as the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein," Chambers said in a February 13, 2025 email.

Tax records for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan show a matching $265,915 payment to Jeff Epstein in 2023 for his role as a director (archived here).

The form lists the money as "reportable compensation from the organization." Lower down, it indicates that the sum is a combination of "base compensation" and "other reportable compensation." The form says nothing about USAID funding.

Source of claims

Many of the posts spreading online include what appears to be a screenshot from datarepublican.com, a website that claims to be "connecting the dots between government grants, charities, and drawing connections to expose where the money flows" (archived here).

The information about Kaiser Permanente's Jeff Epstein comes from the website's "Government NRO Tracking" page, which says it allows users to "search through nonprofit filings to find organizations and their principal officers" (archived here).

Social media users might have believed the $265,915 in compensation came from USAID because the screenshot shows blue, underlined text above the figure saying: "Trace connections to USAID NGOs."

But that line does not indicate that USAID sourced the $265,915.

Rather, the text is a link users can click to visit a separate page on the datarepublican.com website, which shows a "charity graph" that allegedly maps the flow of money between various organizations (archived here). The link language has since changed to say: "See USAID Grant Flow."

The website's "charity graph" page also includes a disclaimer about USAID funding, saying: "Funding is fungible! That means USAID dollars do not literally flow into these NGOs."

AFP has debunked other misinformation about USAID here.