“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Mr. Musk gloated on X at 1:54 a.m. Monday. “Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.”
This is called Impoundment, and is illegal. Just ask Nixon.
The Executive branch is actually required to spend as dictated by Congress. There is a portion of spending that is discretionary, but it's a small minority of the Federal budget, and does not include the things currently being targeted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_...
AFAIK, neither 18F nor Direct File were established by statute, both were set up by executive action within existing legal authority. It's not clear to me that terminating either as functions at executive discretion is illegal.
This is the problem I have with all of the commentary on DOGE, it's extremely slippery about what is being paid for by whom and how. The official website for 18F says they are not allocated funding by Congress: https://18f.gsa.gov/about/