President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have settled on “radical left” Reuters as their latest target, with both men raging that the company was given a $9 million defense contract in 2018.
“GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!” Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday.
It was Trump, however, who was president in 2018; the cash was doled out under his leadership. Trump and Musk also failed to acknowledge the money did not go to the Reuters newsroom but to a different wing of the company.
But Trump credited Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency with unearthing the supposed scandal. A “citizen journalist” flagged the contract, which expired in 2022, after Musk shared his displeasure with a Reuters article about DOGE’s alleged political bias.
“I wonder how much money Reuters is getting from the government?” Musk posted Wednesday night to his 217 million followers. “Let’s find out.”
Mario Nawfal, the citizen journalist, came through with a “Thomson Reuters Special Services” contract about an hour later, much to Musk’s pleasure.
“Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for ‘large scale social deception,’” Musk wrote in a post he’s since pinned to his profile. “That is literally what it says on the purchase order! They’re a total scam. Just wow.”
Musk suggested Reuters, which is best known for its news service with multiple departments, ran disinformation campaigns on behalf of the Pentagon. In reality, the contract went to Thomson Reuters Special Services, which is separate from the newsroom and specializes in countering fraud and cyber threats.
Musk claimed credit for unearthing the Reuters contract on Thursday, writing, “This is what @DOGE has found so far.”
The world’s richest man has long raged against the news side of Reuters, an international wire service founded in London that employed 2,500 journalists as of 2017.
“The legacy media lies as easy as breathing,” Musk wrote last spring. “Reuters is the worst right now.”
Musk called Reuters “the most deceptive news organization on earth” in March and “paid propaganda” in December.
Reuters’ news division did not respond to a request for comment. The CEO of Thomson Reuters Special Services, Steve Rubley, clarified in a statement to the Daily Beast that his entity was entirely separate from Reuters news.
“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 ... Commercial agreements have no influence over or impact on Reuters editorial coverage.”
Politico and The New York Times were also subject to right-wing outrage after it was revealed they received money from federal workers who subscribed to their services earlier this month.
That manufactured scandal has been debunked, but the Reuters contract perhaps returned it to Trump’s attention Thursday morning.
“Why was Politico paid Millions of Dollars for NOTHING,” Trump wrote Thursday. “Buying the press??? PAY BACK THE MONEY TO THE TAXPAYERS! How much has the Failing New York Times paid? Is this the money that is keeping it open??? THEY ARE BUYING THE PRESS!”
