After losing their minds over Politico subscriptions, erroneously claiming they were funded by USAID, President Donald Trump and DOGE bro Elon Musk are now flipping out over an alleged $9 million that “radical left” Reuters was given as part of a defense contract in 2018.
“GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!” Trump posted to Truth Social in the wee hours of the morning on Thursday.
It doesn’t take a genius to remember, though, that Trump was president in 2018, meaning any money Reuters received was given out under his leadership. What Trump also failed to mention in his late-night rant is that the money wasn’t given to Reuters’ newsroom but to a different wing of the company that operates separately from the news agency.
The attacks on Reuters come as Trump’s administration has sought to discredit the mainstream media, which has so far included limiting credible outlets’ access to the White House and spreading lies about how they’re funded while propping up friendly right-wing podcasters and reporters.
In his Truth Social post, Trump credited Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency with unearthing this alleged scandal. The contract was first flagged by a “citizen journalist” (i.e., a Musk acolyte) after Musk voiced his displeasure with a recent Reuters piece that called out DOGE for having partisan motivations.
“I wonder how much money Reuters is getting from the government?” Musk posted Wednesday night. “Let’s find out.”
After the contract, which expired in 2022, was revealed, Musk wrote another post to his social media platform where he falsely suggested that Reuters ran disinformation campaigns on the Pentagon’s behalf. In reality, the contract was paid to Thomson Reuters Special Services, which describes itself as a “trusted leader in delivering scalable solutions to governments and global institutions.”
TRSS, a wholly separate subsidiary of the larger Reuters conglomerate, was given the money in the hopes that it could help prevent cyberattacks and phishing. In other words, it was a far more benign mission than what Musk and Trump suggested. The contract issued to TRSS was done so by the Air Force Research Laboratory and was funded by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency.
Steve Rubley, CEO of TRRS, clarified in a statement to the Daily Beast that the entity is entirely separate from the Reuters news site.
“Recent public discourse has conflated these entities and has inaccurately represented the nature of the business between TRSS and the Department of Defense,” he said. “TRSS has provided software and information services to U.S. government agencies across successive administrations for decades, to assist in identifying and preventing fraud, supporting public safety, and advancing justice.”
He added, “Commercial agreements have no influence over or impact on Reuters editorial coverage.”
Surprisingly, Musk has enough time on his hands to try and discredit various news agencies. Musk, an alleged “special government employee,” has spent the entirety of Trump’s second administration laying off hundreds of thousands of federal workers and dismantling government agencies all in the name of “government efficiency.”
Then again, maybe it’s not all that shocking that he’s found time to attempt to dunk on Reuters. As the Daily Beast reported, Musk has raged against the news side of Reuters since at least 2017.
In March, Musk called Reuters “the most deceptive news organization on earth.” He also said in December that the outlet is “paid propaganda.”
Maybe, instead of posting baseless lies to X, Musk should spend his time weeding out excess spending and “fraud,” as he claims to want to do. After all, despite the new fancy title and job responsibilities the world’s richest man now has, he and Trump have yet to show much evidence that they’re doing anything.
Campaign Action Alex Samuels February 13, 2025 at 11:30PM From Daily Kos
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