Pete Marocco, who worked with Elon Musk’s team to oversee the gutting of foreign aid and the dismantling of the main U.S. aid agency, has left the State Department, administration officials said on Monday April 14, 2025. Marocco is now the director for foreign assistance at the State Department and has been delegated the power of deputy administrator of USAID, In 2018, during Trump’s first term, Marocco was a senior political appointee tasked with promoting stability in areas with armed conflict. Marocco holds a post-graduate certificate in international security from Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Center, and wrote his dissertation on the law of armed conflict and targeting with unmanned aerial systems, while earning a Master’s degree in international human rights law from the University of Oxford.