Jimmy Patronis, the state of Florida’s CFO, has written an open letter to Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), calling on the newly founded organization to audit taxpayer-funded grants awarded to public universities in the state. The grants in question, Patronis said, have been used to provide taxpayer money to organizations that specialize in censorship, disinformation campaigns, social media monitoring, countering propaganda and monitoring coordinated inauthentic behavior.
He also said this inquiry was originally made in September but has yet to receive a response. Patronis specifically highlighted invoices from NewsGuard — a rating system for news and information websites — to the University of Central Florida and the University of Florida that he said were “clear indications of larger concerns.”
Patronis is accusing federal agencies of manipulating universities to use organizations like NewsGuard Technologies, the Global Disinformation Index, the Global Engagement Center and Graphika Technologies, all recipients of federal grants. He detailed concerning findings, such as UCF allegedly using part of a $500,000 grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to fund a $13,500 NewsGuard licensing agreement. According to Patronis, the purchasing agreement included details on NewsGuard needing to fulfill “DoD objectives.”
Federal interference in freedom of speech manipulation and censorship is the focal point of one of several executive orders issued by President Donald Trump during his first weeks in office.
Patronis said his concern is that the federal government is using taxpayer money to suppress free speech. He tied the funding to widely criticized United States Agency for International Development spending while saying money is being spent to dictate what constitutes free speech, using taxpayer dollars. He urged DOGE to look for words such as “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “narrative” and “undesirable content.”
The National Science Foundation was also cited by Patronis as one of the organizations that have been benefiting from such funding. The same organization was subject to a U.S. House interim staff report released earlier this week titled “How NSF is funding the development of automated tools to censor online speech ‘at scale’ and trying to cover up its actions.”
Patronis also cited a separate records request from the University of Florida that revealed an invoice for a $7,500 NewsGuard subscription. The licensing agreement stated its purpose was to “help consumers identify legitimate news and information websites while distinguishing them from those that disseminate unreliable or false information.”
Though the letter is the first of its kind from any CFO in the U.S., DOGE may begin to receive outreach from finance leaders across government on a bipartisan basis to address potential issues before DOGE audits their operations as well.
