Aussie Pols Tell Musk US-Funded Lefty Think Tank at University of Sydney Needs to Be ‘DOGE’d’

A member of parliament in New South Wales, Australia is asking the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to target a left-wing U.S.-funded think tank based at the University of Sydney.

Libertarian John Ruddick said that parliamentary members had just received a briefing from the United States Study Centre (USSC) and it had been “endlessly anti-Trump.”

“It felt like I was stuck in a room and forced to watch MSNBC,” Ruddick posted on X. “The presenter concluded by apologising to Australians on behalf of Americans because of the Trump Administration.”

According to the USSC’s website, the think tank receives funding through student tuition, from the Australian government, and “grant funding from the governments of the United States, Japan and other close allies and partners of Australia,” as well as Lockheed Martin.

“A quick AI search indicates the @USSC receives funding from US taxpayers (and Lockheed Martin of course). If true I hereby request it be DOGEd,” Ruddick wrote.

Former Australian MP George Christensen seconded Ruddick’s call, calling the USSC a “partisan outfit.”

“Hey @elonmusk,  I’m also a former Member of the Australian Parliament & can attest to the fact the United States Study Centre is a partisan outfit, essentially representing the Democrats in Australia,”  Christensen posted on X. “How it receives any US taxpayer funding is beyond me. Time for it to be DOGE’d.”

Ruddick also noted that the USSC website on Tuesday featured a “briefing” from former USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator Lester Munson on “the DOGE cuts and the pathway forward.”

In his second term President Trump has focused dismantling the corrupt and wasteful agency, canceling the majority of its contracts, and eliminating 1,600 positions.

Obama-appointed Judge Theodore D. Chuang of U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland however ruled on Tuesday that DOGE Chief Elon Musk likely violated the Constitution “in multiple ways” and “robbed Congress of its authority to oversee the dissolution” of USAID, even though the agency was created through an executive order signed by the late President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

Chuang, who was overruled by the Supreme Court during the first Trump administration, opined that Musk has improperly acted as a U.S. officer, the New York Times reported.