Musk walks back claim US intended to send $50M worth of condoms to Gaza

WASHINGTON

Billionaire Elon Musk backtracked Tuesday on his claim that the US had been intending to send $50 million worth of condoms to the Gaza Strip.

“First of all, some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,” Musk told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about fact-checking reports that million of dollars were actually earmarked towards the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases in Gaza province of Mozambique.

“We will make mistakes, but we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes," he said.

"I’m not sure we should be sending $50 million worth of condoms to anywhere. Frankly, I’m not sure that’s something Americans would be really excited about. And that is really an enormous number of condoms," Musk continued.

"If it went to Mozambique instead of Gaza…okay, that's not as bad. But why are we doing that?" he said.

His comments followed claims by US President Donald Trump, who earlier this month alleged that his administration had “identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas.”

The claim was first announced by White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in her first press briefing, saying the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had found “that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza.” However, the administration provided no evidence to support the assertion.

A review of publicly available USAID data from 2007 to 2023 contradicts the claim, showing no record of condom shipments to Gaza. The only shipment to the Middle East during that period was a $45,680 supply sent to Jordan in 2023, marking the first recorded delivery to the region since 2019.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grants database, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation in Mozambique received more than $83 million in funding since 2021 for reproductive health projects in two provinces: Inhambane and Gaza.