The journalists from Politico have just been ousted by DOGE has having had received $8 million in annual funding from USAID (another Government-run institution that has been ousted by the same DOGE), so I can understand how come Musk would want to keep DOGE's dealing away from journalists that might see this agency as very antithetic to their (the journalists') material well-being.
The entire US govt did pay Politico about $8.2M, presumably in the form of buying their subscription products. Politico really does do deep-dive analysis behind a paywall, and I can see why government people might want access. (I have no idea how justified this is, honestly, but I wouldn't immediately dismiss it.)
This seems like a fair enough summary: https://www.axios.com/2025/02/05/politico-trump-musk-governm...
Or dig through https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c... yourself if you want, I guess. That site is super-overloaded at the moment, unfortunately.
I've yet to hear why this is a corrupt or inappropriate purchase. I might change my mind if I hear evidence on why this was an inappropriate contract, but right now this reeks of dictator-grade fear-targeting of political opponents.
This is why a government is supposed to have an independent judiciary. Or inspector generals who haven't been purged.
For what it's the worth the NGOs supported by American institutions like USAID have been raising hell accompanied by cries of "democracy is dying" when our Government here in Romania had done a similar thing, i.e. paying Government money to the local media (supposedly in order to advertise Government initiatives in said media).
So you can see how hypocritical this all seems to us, Eastern-Europeans, us who had been called naughty and worse for doing the same thing that organizations like USAID had been doing on their home-turf ($8 million, $24k, it doesn't really matter, the intention was there, we've had a former political leader thrown in jail for corruption/political influence that involved no money, so $0). Samantha Power and those that stood behind here deserve prison-time, the same prison-time that the NGOs that her organization supported had called for the corrupt leaders here in Romania.
LAter edit: Now that I've gone through that Axios article more at length, come on, they can't be serious with stuff like this:
> A fake theory about Politico being funded by the government is catching fire in right-wing circles
They call this "fake"? They call the Government actually giving money to Politico as "fake"? Pardon my French, by what the hell? What did they expect? For the Government to have written on said money: "this is corruption money"? Of course that the Government "bought" something from Politico, that's how it's done, that's how our corrupt government here in Romania is also doing it when it needs the media on its side. Again, the US "liberals" should smarten up, that's why they've lost last year's elections, because they though the rest of the populace as still being stupid, stupid enough to believe that the Government giving money to Politico is "fake".
To say nothing of the "right-wing" innuendo, for what it's worth I'm pretty left-wing, the "I want communist nationalizations" left-wing.
In this specific case, Politico is apparently worth over a billion dollars based on its sale in 2021, so I think that the US government giving it $8M would be a shit bribe and insufficient to hurt its independence. Based on its subscriber number boasts, it's getting at least $350M in annual subscription revenue. (Probably more, since I'm assuming the cheapest subscription there.) Would they care about a 2% drop in subscription revenue? Likely not enough for it to affect their coverage.
USAID spent $24k on those subscriptions.
Musk is full of shit. I have yet to see an example of such a claim that didn't end up being massively exaggerated or outright false.
But, the sad part is, that this also means its an idea which is impossible to challenge, because you cant trust anyone who counters it.
I'm not "assuming", I know that for a fact.
> because you cant trust anyone who counters it.
Do you happen to live in a part of the Globe that has been under direct USAID (and NED) influence? Something tells me you don't, I do (I live in Eastern Europe), so allow me not to receive lessons from people who know nothing, absolutely nothing, about this type of organisations.
Also, where I'm from was historically on America's shit list. Still benefited from it.