By Kenneth Li
(Reuters) – Thomson Reuters said on Thursday its business with the Department of Defense was “inaccurately represented,” in response to accusations on social media by Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump that the company played a role in “large scale social deception” for the government.
The contract in question was a four-year $9 million award, beginning in 2018 during Trump’s first term and ending in 2022, between the U.S. Department of Defense and a division of the Toronto-based content and technology company called Thomson Reuters Special Services (TRSS). The contract was intended to protect the U.S. government from social engineering, which is a form of cyber threat in which people are tricked into divulging sensitive information.
Trump demanded Reuters repay the U.S. government in a Truth Social post in Thursday morning: DOGE: Looks like Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department of Defense to study “large scale social deception.” GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!”
Thomson Reuters said TRSS is a separate U.S. legal entity governed by an independent board of directors. Reuters, an independent global news organization adheres to the Trust Principles.
“TRSS has provided software and information services to U.S. government agencies across successive administrations for decades, to assist in identifying and preventing fraud, supporting public safety, and advancing justice,” Steve Rubley, CEO of Thomson Reuters Special Services, said in a statement in response to questions about the nature of the defense department contract.
Musk, the White House and the Defense Department did not reply to a request for comment.
Thomson Reuters issued its statement after Tesla CEO Musk, Trump, the Hungarian government and Russian state media accused the company on social media of being paid by the U.S. government to play a role in “large scale social deception.”
The scrutiny of this contract, named “ACTIVE SOCIAL ENGINEERING DEFENSE (ASED) LARGE SCALE SOCIAL DECEPTION (LSD)” comes as Musk has spearheaded an effort to cut waste from government agencies called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Members of this group have scrutinized personnel and payment information in government computer systems and helped dismantle two U.S. agencies.
The contract was awarded by the Air Force Research Laboratory and funded by U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the research and development arm of the U.S. military.
DARPA described the ASED program on its website as one that “aims to develop the core technology to enable the capability to automatically identify, disrupt, and investigate social engineering attacks.”
The site added that “If successful, the ASED technology will do this by actively detecting attacks, intervening in communications between users and potential attackers, and coordinating investigations into the source of the attacks.”
DARPA did not have a description for “Large Scale Social Deception.”
In the transaction history of the contract from USAspending.gov, a website that tracks contracts with the U.S. government, funding amounts were dispersed during the contract period for activities described as “SIMULATION TESTING AND MEASUREMENT LARGE SCALE DECEPTION”.
DARPA was not immediately reachable for comment and Thomson Reuters did not provide additional details.
The DARPA site said the program is now complete.
Thomson Reuters Special Services has been awarded more than $120 million in contracts over multiple federal agencies dating back to 2010. These agencies include the Defense Department, which has awarded more than $60 million in contracts and the Department of Homeland Security, which has awarded $55.85 million over time.
(Reporting by Kenneth Li in New York; Editing by Anna Driver)
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