Was 'Reuters' Really Paid $9 Million by the Department of Defense? Elon Musk Claims Yes

While folks are still debating whether Elon Musk’s son X told Donald Trump, "You're not the president, you need to leave," Elon has shifted focus to even bigger allegations. He’s now claiming that Reuters was paid millions of dollars for a "large-scale social deception" project.

Elon hinted on Feb. 12, 2025, that he would be investigating Reuters’s records next in a post on X (formerly Twitter), writing, "I wonder how much money Reuters is getting from the government? Let’s find out."

Shortly after, he reiterated his claims in a pinned post by Mario Nawfal, accusing Reuters of being paid millions by the U.S. government for "large-scale social deception" and calling the media outlet a "total scam."

Before you take sides or assume that the government paid Reuters to shift its stance, let’s take a step back and examine the facts. Jumping to conclusions without all the details only contributes to the spread of fake news — and who wants that? So, let’s dig in.

Elon’s claims that Reuters received millions from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) come from a purchase order shared by Mario Nawfal. Mario says Reuters was paid $9 million for a project that began in September 2018 and ran through November 2022.

In it, the awarding agency is listed as the DoD, and the recipient is Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC. The description of the project is listed as "Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED) Large Scale Social Deception (LSD)." At first glance, it certainly looks troubling, doesn’t it? But perhaps — just perhaps — Elon jumped the gun in pinning this and reiterating that Reuters received millions without first breaking down the facts.

First and foremost, let’s break down the project name piece by piece so we can all better understand it. "Active Social Engineering Defense" likely refers to a cybersecurity or threat prevention service — specifically, defense against social engineering. Social engineering tactics include things like phishing, where scammers send emails or texts posing as legitimate companies but are actually trying to steal people's information.

Now, "Large Scale Social Deception" could refer to protecting the DoD from large-scale social deception, meaning stopping scammers who use social engineering tactics to pose as the government and try to steal private information from people, such as social security numbers or other sensitive details. Doesn’t that seem more reasonable than the idea that the DoD paid Reuters to deceive the public and actually wrote it down in a document, creating a traceable paper trail?

What further justifies this notion is that the recipient, Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC, is a company that provides solutions to governments and global institutions to help them "mitigate risk, illuminate networks, and make informed decisions," according to the company’s website. While it owns the Reuters news agency, Thomson Reuters also has a branch that works in data defense.

On its website, it specifically states that it "serves Federal law enforcement, the U.S. defense and intelligence communities, and commercial and international businesses."

So, the government was paying for data and network defense from a company that specializes in exactly that. While you might question the price tag, keep in mind that the DoD is pretty massive, and the project was slated to run from 2018 to 2022.