Billionaire Elon Musk, the head of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has set his eyes on a new target: government agencies’ media subscriptions.
The staunch ally of President Donald Trump, who is a major government contractor, has latched on to data from USAspending that lists federal spending information to falsely claim that the federal government was directly bankrolling news organizations. Right-wing influencers then began to claim, again falsely, that news organization Politico’s recent payroll glitch was because of the funding freeze at the U.S. Agency for International Development, an organization that oversees billions of dollars in humanitarian aid across the globe. All of this is part of an effort to discredit the mainstream media — the Trump administration’s frequent punching bag.
The White House endorsed Musk’s call for cuts.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday told reporters government agencies pay for subscriptions to news agencies like Politico.
“I can confirm that the more than 8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico will no longer be happening,” she said. “The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments.”
Politico’s leaders debunked the widespread fallacies about their funding in a statement addressed to readers.
CEO Goli Sheikholeslami and editor-in-chief John Harris clarified that Politico is a privately owned company. They also noted the difference between its news websites — Politico.com and Politico.eu, which rely on advertising and sponsorships — and its professional subscription service, Politico Pro, which some government agencies pay for.
“They subscribe because it makes them better at their jobs — helping them track policy, legislation and regulations in real-time with news, intelligence and a suite of data products,” their statement reads.
Sheikholeslami and Harris added that the agencies subscribe “through standard public procurement processes — just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient.”
“This is not funding. It is a transaction — just as the government buys research, equipment, software and industry reports,” they continued.
Musk has also claimed The New York Times is “government-funded media.”
The news organization debunked his falsehood, noting that the revenue earned by federal subscriptions is “less than 1/1000th of what The Times takes in annually.”
Earlier this week, Musk also seemed to endorse an X user’s post saying USAID has been financing the BBC.
The user falsely equated BBC News, which is funded through a license fee, with BBC Media Action, the BBC’s international charity that is entirely separate and funded by donations.
Despite the efforts by news organizations and others to set the record straight, Musk’s claims appear to have already made a difference.
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Axios on Thursday reported that a Trump White House official ordered the General Services Administration to “cancel every single media contract” immediately.
Since Trump’s inauguration, Musk has launched a relentless attack on USAID, seeking to shut it down. Labor groups have taken legal action against Trump to prevent that from happening.