False information about USAID funding is being distributed on social media in the U.S.

As the Trump administration moves to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, false and misleading information is being spread on social media to support change, much of it spread by the administration and Elon Musk.

The publications raise questions about the funding of specific projects and organizations and often claim without evidence that the money was misused.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that USAID had spent “$1.5 million to promote DEI in Serbia’s workplaces; $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland; $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic in Peru.”

Those claims were picked up and widely shared on social media weekly.

USAID awarded the grant only to Grupa Izadji, a Serbian organization whose stated goal is to “promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.”

The State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs granted the rest.

In 2022, it awarded $70,884 to an Irish company for “a live music event to promote the shared values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility of the United States and Ireland.”

In 2021, a $25,000 grant was awarded to a university in Colombia “to raise awareness and increase transgender representation” by producing an opera, with an additional $22,020 coming from non-federal funds.

In 2022, $32,000 was awarded to a Peruvian organization that funded “a tailor-made comic, with an LGBTQ+ hero to address social and mental health issues.”