DOGE loses control over government grants website, freeing up billions

The U.S. DOGE Service has lost the power to control the government’s process for awarding billions of dollars in federal funds, the latest sign of the team’s declining influence following Elon Musk’s high-profile exit from Washington, according to two people familiar with the situation and emails obtained by The Washington Post.

Three months ago, DOGE employees wrested control of a key federal grants website, grants.gov, which serves as a clearinghouse for more than $500 billion in annual awards, The Post reported. For most of the program’s existence, federal agencies including the Defense Department posted their funding opportunities directly to the site, where thousands of outside organizations could see and apply for them - until April, when DOGE staffers changed the website’s permissions to give themselves power to review and approve all grants across the government.

But on Thursday, federal officials were instructed to stop routing the grant-making process through DOGE, according to emails obtained by The Post and the two people, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive situation. The decision follows fears that months of DOGE-linked delays would lead to what critics allege would be the illegal impoundment of federal funds.

“Dear Agency Partners, We are pleased to inform agencies that they may resume standard [Notice of Funding Opportunity] procedures on Grants.gov, effective immediately,” read an email sent Thursday to government agencies and obtained by The Post. “Please coordinate with your agency’s leadership to ensure that all required reviews and approvals by political appointees are completed before posting your funding opportunity.”

Contacted for comment Friday, the White House sent a statement attributed to an unnamed senior administration official saying DOGE will continue to “facilitate the review of grants, working alongside agency secretaries to determine which grants should continue, which should be terminated, and which require further scrutiny.”

“Robust controls remain in place, with DOGE personnel embedded at each agency, assisting secretaries’ offices in reviewing grants daily,” the statement read. “Agency secretaries and senior advisors will continue to implement and leverage the controls initially established by DOGE to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, retaining full agency discretion to determine the appropriate flow of funds at the project level.”

The Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the grants.gov website, did not immediately respond to questions Friday.

Musk departed the government in a blaze last month, feuding with Trump in a public spat that spilled across social media - and immediately spurred Cabinet officials and senior staffers across the government to reclaim power from the billionaire’s cost-cutting team. The fate of DOGE has remained uncertain in the days since; some top aides closely associated with Musk have quit the government, while other DOGE representatives have moved into permanent government jobs.

The White House, meanwhile, has insisted DOGE still has an important role to play, and budget director Russell Vought is hoping to take over Musk’s efforts to shrink federal spending, The Post reported.

The weakening of DOGE’s control of the grants website is the latest sign of the team’s diminishing federal status.

In the time that DOGE controlled grants.gov, the Trump administration failed to post more than two dozen planned funding opportunities, threatening the disbursement of federal funds appropriated by Congress, according to two people familiar with the system. The stalling on grant postings comes as the Trump administration is preparing to test a 1974 budget law by refusing to spend congressionally mandated funds across government, The Post reported.

DOGE’s control of Notice of Funding Opportunities, or NOFOs, functioned by requiring federal agencies to send any new grant or award postings to a DOGE-controlled mailbox, per two people familiar and records obtained by The Post. The new process replaced a years-old system where agencies would directly post their planned NOFOs to grants.gov, allowing the public to browse and apply for federal funding.

At least 30 funding opportunities piled up and languished in the DOGE-controlled mailbox, the two people said.

Among the delayed funding opportunities: a planned $8 million grant focused on resources to support Holocaust survivors; a planned $6 million grant focused on supporting health workers who care for patients with Alzheimer’s disease; a planned $1.6 million grant to support dementia care for Native Americans; and three grants, encompassing about $7 million in funding, to support fall prevention in older adults.

Some of the delayed funding opportunities were initially projected to be posted in March and April. It is unclear if those can still be salvaged. If the funding opportunities are not posted quickly, it will be too late to choose grantees, and the funds will effectively expire within the fiscal year, said current and former federal officials.

“At some point soon, simply making these grants will be outright impossible,” said Robert Gordon, who served as the HHS assistant secretary of financial resources during the Biden administration.

Even when funding opportunities were successfully posted during DOGE’s tenure controlling the grant website, the team’s influence was sometimes visible.

A funding opportunity focused on suicide prevention and meant to be posted by the Department of Veterans Affairs initially mistakenly identified Luke Farritor as the grantor, sparking confusion with federal officials when it appeared online last month. Farritor is a DOGE engineer who is working with the grants system. The posting has since been corrected.

DOGE may be removed from the process, but the email obtained by The Post shows political appointees will still be involved in reviewing grants, noted Jacob Leibenluft, a former official in the Office of Management and Budget under the Biden administration.

Leibenluft recently wrote a paper with Cristin Dorgelo, another former Biden official, analyzing the effects of DOGE’s control of grants. Leibenluft and Dorgelo found DOGE was “interfering at every stage” and rendering “federal grantmaking … less efficient, more uncertain, more political, and more open to corruption.”

In an interview, Leibenluft and Dorgelo said DOGE’s removal from grants.gov is a hopeful sign that things will improve - but not too hopeful.

“I anticipate we’ll continue to see efforts to interfere with the standard grant-making process,” Leibenluft said, partly in reference to the required approval from political appointees.

“What that means for grantees is confusion,” added Dorgelo, “new layers and burdens and delays inside the funding opportunity posting process.”