This morning I checked my go-to buzz-click news website and this headline popped up: “Unsettling question raised over Trump admin’s role in devastating Nepal floods” That was just for starters. Social media is lighting up all over the Intertubes, and they also have questions. More specifically, they are asking questions about Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s possible role in the disaster. That’s no surprise, considering that Musk can take credit for a whole series of disasters spinning out from his successful efforts to install a drooling, dripping, mad-as-a-hatter grift machine at the White House. Nevertheless, there is more to the story, so let’s go back to the source… Elon Musk And The Nepal Flood By now, everyone knows that Elon Musk pumped a fortune into US President Donald Trump’s 2024 successful re-election bid, to be rewarded with a post at Trump’s “DOGE” budget-cutting office last year. Musk is at it again this year with a pledge to influence the upcoming mid-term elections. With that in mind, let’s go back to that headline: “Unsettling question raised over Trump admin’s role in devastating Nepal floods” Reading into the text (link here), the phrase “Trump admin’s role” is clearly shorthand for “Tesla CEO Elon Musk single-handedly destroyed invaluable disaster monitoring resources through his role as chief of US President Donald Trump’s ‘DOGE’ budget-cutting office, thereby putting millions of lives at risk.” A direct connection between Musk and the Nepal flood disaster is somewhat less clear. However, the article references former USAID head Jeremy Konyndyk. In a thread posted on Elon Musk’s own social media platform, X (formerly Twitter) on August 28, Konyndyk was not shy about connecting the dots: Nepal is a disaster-prone country (I oversaw USAID’s response to the 2015 quake there). AID worked extensively on disaster risk reduction there. DOGE canceled all 7 other DRR projects there as well. And DOGE killed $420m worth of climate work at NASA. “DOGE famously used keyword searches for terms like ‘climate’ to terminate federal grants. Among the victims: a collab between USAID and NASA for flood prediction, early warning, disaster readiness, glacier inventories, and mapping dangerous glacial lakes… …in Nepal.” Don’t stop there. Konyndyk adds a key disclaimer at the end of the thread: Could these programs have helped foresee or mitigate this week’s glacial flooding catastrophe? Hard to say with an outlier event like this. But that was their purpose. Sadly, it’s hard to anticipate or mitigate climate hazards which your ideology has decreed do not exist. Waiting For The Next Nepal Flood…In The US Konyndyk emphasizes that the Nepal flood could be an unpredictable outlier, and that may be so. Still, as a climate-related event spawned by a rogue glacier, the Nepal flood has been playing out to various degrees all across the US, making disaster projections and planning all the more essential, particularly in areas far from a coast, where a false sense of security supports complacency. That includes North Carolina, where somewhat ironically a new flood disclosure law went into motion in July of 2024, just a few weeks before the destructive path of Hurricane Helene hit the western part of the state with torrential rains. The NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) tracks climate-related real estate disclosure laws across the country. Prior to the new law, North Carolina received a “D” for flood disclosures. As of July 1, 2024, the state rated an “A” from NRDC, which lists the following disclosures. The property [is] located in a federal or other designated flood hazard zone. The property has experienced damage due to flooding, water seepage, or pooled water attributable to a natural event such as heavy rainfall, coastal storm surge, tidal inundation, or river overflow. A claim for flood damage to the property has been filed with any insurance provider, including the National Flood Insurance Program. There is a current flood insurance policy covering the property. There is a flood elevation certificate for the property. If the seller has received assistance from FEMA, U.S. Small Business Administration, or any other federal disaster flood assistance for flood damage to the property. Tragically, Helene was an outlier for western North Carolina, a mountainous winter resort region previously touted by the real estate industry as a cool weather climate haven. As of June 2025, the Centers for Disease Control tracked 107 deaths directly attributed to Helene, with another victim added in July of 2025. Preventing The Next Outlier US citizens traveling elsewhere around the globe are also exposed to outlier events, the tsunami of 2004 being one such example. The devastating flood spawned from an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, which last saw a similar event in 1883. Accordingly, the region had no early warning system. The US did. Analysts at the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii tracked the seismic event and calculated the resulting tsunami. However, at the time NOAA had no meaningful way to advise local emergency officials that they needed to evacuate hundreds of thousands of residents and tourists from the coast within a matter of minutes. The tsunami traveled at the speed of a jet plane and hit the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh, eventually killing approximately 230,000 people. In the 20 years following, early warnings and communications systems have improved — or at least they did improve until Trump took office in 2024 and Musk took his chainsaw to NOAA, among other resources. Outlier or not, the Nepal flood has caused 752 confirmed deaths in Nepal so far with 2,502 people still missing, while China reports 16 dead and 546 missing, including 261 Nepalese and other foreigners missing in Tibet. Overall, the list of missing includes approximately 100 US citizens in Tibet and Nepal. Perhaps Trump and Musk could spare a few dollars from their respective holdings to help with the recovery. For now, US taxpayers are footing the bill, such as it is. “The United States is standing with the people of Nepal by providing more than $3.6 million worth of life-saving humanitarian assistance, including up to three months of emergency food assistance to up to 10,000 flood-affected households,” the US Department of State insisted boldly via Facebook on August 30. As of this writing the agency has not posted an update on its own website. The figure of $3.6 million is pathetic considering the billions misspent on Trump’s war of choice in Iran, but it’s still a step up from the measly $500,000 Trump promised on August 26, to be distributed through Catholic Relief Services. “Concerned U.S. citizens seeking information about family members in Nepal should call 1-888-407-4747 toll-free from the United States and Canada, or 1-202-501-4444 from other locations,” the State Department adds. Meanwhile, heavy rains and rising water levels have prompted local officials to advise of renewed flooding in the impacted areas. Photo: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s work at the “DOGE” budget-cutting office is surfacing again, following the devastating flood in Nepal last week (CleanTechnica archive courtesy of Grapevine Police Department).
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