Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity AI CEO, defies Musk and Trump over USAID

Aravind Srinivas, the Indian-origin CEO of the AI search engine Perplexity AI, has challenged Tesla owner Elon Musk to "stop" him if he can from raising a significant amount of funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

"Considering raising $500B from USAID. Funding secured. Stop me if you can @elonmusk What is USAID?" Srinivas posted on X. As of midnight on Friday, February 7, "All USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs," the USAID website read.

Considering raising $500B from USAID. Funding secured. Stop me if you can @elonmusk

— Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas) February 5, 2025

On Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered in Washington DC as part of a nationwide demonstration against the Trump administration's decision to dismantle USAID. Before Musk called it a "criminal organisation," Trump said the US agency was "run by radical lunatics."

The USAID "has been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we're getting them out… and then we'll make a decision (on its future)," Trump said.

The Trump administration has said that the agency is wasting money and has to be aligned with its policy priorities. Aravind's post was after US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk called for shutting down the federal agency.

Who is Aravind Srinivas?

Aravind Srinivas is the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI, an AI-powered search engine backed by prominent investors, including Jeff Bezos. Perplexity AI was jointly developed by Srinivas, Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats and Johnny Ho. Srinivas is an alumnus of IIT-Madras. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. He began his career as a research intern at OpenAI. He also worked for Google and DeepMind.