Josh Gruenbaum

Future DOGE employee Justin Fox is contacted by Anthony Armstrong and is recruited to work there by him and other DOGE employees who communicate with him over Signal.

Josh Gruenbaum starts as Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner at GSA.

A senior policy strategist at the White House relays a “Stephen request” (meaning Stephen Miller) that “POTUS wants to see more action against universities.” Included in the initial coordination is GSA Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum. He becomes involved with figuring out grants from multiple agencies to cut for both University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State University, because they had allowed trans athletes to participate in sports. This is very much not his area of responsibility at the GSA, but he is on the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism which stripped funding from Columbia Univesity.

During a discussion on how to strip grants from the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State, GSA FAS Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum sends an email to coordinate grant freezes from DOD, DHS and the EPA. He includes DOGE staffers Kyle Schutt, Adam Hoffman and Kathryn Armstrong Loving as the recipients of these requests.

Kathryn Armstrong Loving and Erica Jehling continue to work directly with Josh Gruenbaum from the GSA on more grants to cancel at the EPA.

Tarak Makecha, a DOGE representative at DOJ is forwarded a list at 6pm of DOJ contracts to terminate for the Acacia Center, a nonprofit in DOGE’s crosshairs that day and a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the DOJ. He coordinates with Josh Gruenbaum at the GSA, who is leading a multi-agency effort to eliminate grants.

As part of a DOGE-driven effort to find ways to punish Harvard by pulling its grants from the federal govenment, Josh Gruenbaum emails Alexander Simonpour to ask if there are grants that can be revoked by NASA. The next day, Simonpour relayed the request to other NASA staffers and then followed up on May 8th stating that the White House had imposed a 5pm deadline for the information.

A contractor at GSA states that he came across a list of staff at GSA who had not yet completed all of their mandatory security training. This included prominent DOGE staff that had been at the agency for several months like Thomas Shedd, Josh Gruenbaum, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor and Steve Davis.

DOGE staff at NASA, GSA and the White House finalize a list of five NASA grants to be killed and discuss the language for the terminiation letters in a series of email discussions and meetings to 11pm that night. The agency sends a letter to Harvard the following day.

Jeremy Lichtman emails USDA officials to inform them that GSA (likely Josh Gruenbaum) had directed them to review several agency grants for termination. These terminations were reportedly “awaiting final greenlight from the White House.”

Concerned by people questioning his continued authority, Steve Davis reportedly taps Anthony Armstrong, Josh Gruenbaum and Stephen Ehikian to assess the loyalty of DOGE staffers and assert they are the leadership of DOGE now, acting under the authority of JD Vance and Susie Wiles in the White House. This is a bluff, and staffers in the White House counter that their authority is only within GSA itself.

In an interview with the Financial Times about his reported squeeze of government contractors, Josh Gruenbaum denies he has made unreasonable demands of many companies while going easy on Trump allies during his reviews of all government contracts overseen by the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA.

After removing Stephen Ehikian as the acting director of GSA, the White House has reportedly detailed nine other staffers to the agency to speed a “de-Muskification” of the agency. This is possibly also related to the GSA supporting Steve Davis over the White House in his attempt to keep running DOGE even after he had left. A source describes Josh Gruenbaum as still in the good graces of the White House.

After GSA officials raised concerns that the xAI Grok model was a safety risk because it was too syncophantic and susceptible to manipulation, Josh Gruenbaum defends the inclusion of the company’s models into the government’s USAi site. Susie Wiles is satisfied by his explanation, but usage of the model by government agencies has been low, except in some cases where security testers have needed to simulate a bad actor.