Inside DOGE’s involvement in National Science Foundation grant terminations last year

Newly obtained FOIA records reveal details about the level of White House and DOGE involvement in terminating grants last year at the National Science Foundation. The FOIA documents were obtained by Democracy Forward, which has frequently gone toe to toe with the Trump administration in federal court, and show NSF communications involving DOGE affiliate Zachary Terrell from April and May 2025. The correspondence suggests Terrell recommended terminating grants from congressionally mandated programs and, notably, indicated that the White House had provided a list of grants to cut. The records show that Terrell wrote in a message sent May 19, 2025 that he claims the White House sent him “a list of misinformation related grants that should be terminated,” and he then provided a list the agency hadn’t terminated yet. It’s not clear who the recipient was, but the message was sent through an account associated with Terrell’s NSF email. The list that followed his message was redacted. While DOGE’s presence at NSF and role in grant terminations was generally known, questions remained about the details of that involvement as well as the role of the White House in the science agency’s operations.

With the end of an already-extended deal in sight, the General Services Administration has secured an expanded OneGov agreement with Anthropic for its Claude models. GSA said Tuesday that federal agencies will have access to a 40% discount on token-based usage across Claude models with consumption-based pricing and no minimum purchase required. Anthropic is in an ongoing legal battle with the Pentagon, though its relationship with officials elsewhere in the federal government appears to be solid. The new OneGov agreements have been highly anticipated as agencies contend with dependency on promotional pricing. Anthropic initially extended its original deal until the end of October, offering a $1 per user offering for Claude for Government. The new agreement follows the lead of OpenAI, which switched to consumption-based pricing last month as part of its new OneGov deal. Consumption-based pricing has rapidly replaced seat-based pricing in private-sector enterprises, and the trend is bleeding into the federal government. GSA sees the pricing model as one that “scales with actual use.”

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