President Donald Trump‘s administration and his supporters have turned their eyes to media outlets paid by federal agencies, promoted by a misleading claim this week that the USAID had spent $8 million on subscriptions to news outlet Politico.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a poorly researched claim that the aid agency, which the Trump administration wants to shutter, spent $8 million, when that amount was for subscriptions across all federal agencies.
In the clamor following the story, another falsehood, shared by Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk, claimed The New York Times had received “tens of millions” from the U.S. government over the past five years.
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The Claim
A post on X, formerly Twitter, by Elon Musk, posted on February 5, 2025, viewed 14 million times, highlighted another post by conservative comentator Ian Miles Cheong, that said: “The US Government gave the New York Times tens of millions of dollars over just the past 5 years despite paying relatively little money to the NYT in the years preceding 2021. For instance, in August 2024, the US government awarded $4.1 million to the NYT.
“The bulk of the funds came from the US Department of Health and Human Services at $26.90m, followed by the National Science Foundation at $19.15m.”
Musk replied: “NYT is government-funded media.”
The post included screengrabs from the government spending site USAspending that showed spending filtered by the keyword “New York Times.”
The Facts
The data Cheong gave and Musk amplified does not show that the U.S. government “gave” The New York Times “tens of millions” of dollars.
Searching for “New York Times” returns unrelated spending for other institutions that include the words “New York” in some part of the spending entry. They include grants to The Research Foundation for the State University of New York, New York University and the New York Genome Center Inc.
The results also show spending records for more than 17 years.
USAspending.gov can correctly filter specific payments to The New York Times which shows that over the last five years, government agencies spent about $1.6 million, almost entirely on subscriptions. Other payments include ads, legal notices and delivery charges.
Over the past 17 years, the period Cheong searched under, total spending came to $3.1 million.
The New York Times’ managing director of external communications, Charlie Stadtlander, told Newsweek: “It was surprising to see social media attention on the fact that a small number of government offices, libraries and courts purchase subscriptions to The New York Times and other media outlets.
“These officials and other public servants are simply seeking to better understand the world through our independent journalism, like millions of other Americans.
“It’s worth noting that we offer these government subscriptions at a heavily discounted rate. For example, one arrangement provides more than 1 million active-duty and retired military members and their families access to The Times to understand what’s happening in the world.”
The New York Times confirmed that it has received no federal grants, that subscriptions have been bought for decades under Democratic and Republican administrations, including the first Trump administration, and that revenue earned from federal subscriptions amount to “less than 1/1000th of what we take in annually.”
The Ruling
False.
The claim is based on faulty research. It quoted a search of U.S. government spending that included unrelated organizations. An accurate search reveals that U.S. government agencies spent about $1.6 million over the past five years on The New York Times services, almost entirely on subscriptions.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek’s Fact Check team
