--- title: "Elon Musk Bullies Congress Into Cutting Funding for Child Cancer Research" description: "Donald Trump has not yet been sworn in, but Elon Musk has already killed a bill that would have provided money for pediatric cancer research. " date: "2024-12-20" modified: "2024-12-20" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-kills-child-cancer-spending" categories: - "Cancer" - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "cancer" - "doge" - "donald trump" - "elon musk" --- # Elon Musk Bullies Congress Into Cutting Funding for Child Cancer Research ![Donald Trump has not yet been sworn in, but Elon Musk has already killed a bill that would have provided money for pediatric cancer research. ]() *\Image: Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty / Futurism\* President-elect Donald Trump hasn't yet been sworn in, but his advisor and major financial backer Elon Musk has already killed a bipartisan bill that would have provided money for pediatric cancer research. As political journalist [Sam Stein reports for *The Bulwark*](), Congressional GOP leadership has kowtowed to Musk's pressure and kiboshed the budget proposal [meant to keep the government open]() and fund essential functions. In a barrage of posts — including a [4:15 AM tweet on Wednesday morning]() — the X-formerly-Twitter owner insisted that the bill "should not pass." By that night, [Republicans had shot down the budget proposal]() — and with it any hope that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's Department of Government Efficiency (abbreviated, annoyingly, as DOGE) would be a mere vanity project for the billionaire. Soon after the initial bill failed to pass, Trump endorsed a revised (read: much more limited) version that also [failed to pass the House of Representatives](), leading to a potential government shutdown. As Stein points out, the spending bill that Musk murdered [contained a veritable conservative wishlist](), including money to bolster semiconductor supply chains, protections for rural consumers ripped off by the internet service providers, and restrictions on American investment in China. Eliminating those provisions — as well as the whole "keeping the government open" thing — is a huge deal. But a bit involving pediatric cancer research is a particularly bad look. In its original form, the budget proposal would have extended funding for the National Institutes of Health's [Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program](), which passed during a [similarly gridlocked Congressional session in 2014](). Named for a 10-year-old girl who died from a brain tumor the year prior, that program [funded a decade of research]() into causes and cures for childhood cancers like the one that killed Miller — and now, it's unclear what will happen to it now that it's been eliminated from the budget. In an interview with *The Bulwark*, Nancy Goodman, the founder of the Kids vs. Cancer nonprofit and mother to a child who died of cancer at just 10 years old, said the exclusion of the Kids First program is a "completely heart-wrenching outcome." "We spent a lot of time putting together policies with broad bipartisan support to help kids seriously ill," Goodman said. "How can it be that our society is not thinking about the most vulnerable children and doing everything they can to help them? How can we cut this out in the name of efficiency? How does that make sense?" That kind of pained questioning seems, unfortunately, to be par for the course with this incoming administration — and Trump hasn't even officially taken office yet. **More on Musk:** [*Elon Musk's Drug Use Means He Isn't Allowed to Enter Certain SpaceX Buildings*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()