Trump Team Eyes Politically Connected Startup to Overhaul $700 Billion Government Payments Program

Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the RAMP company to start financial technology published a ram of how to deal with wasteful government spending. In a 4000 -word blog entitled “The Confinive Formula”, the CEO of RAMP and one of its investors chanted ideas similar to the ideas promoted by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk: Federal programs were by fraud, and similar business technologies can provide a quick solution.

RAMP sells corporate credit cards and companies to analyze spending. While the company seems to have no federal contracts, the publication involves that the government should consider its employment. Just as RAMP has helped companies manage its budgets, the company “can do the same for a variety of government agencies,” according to social media participants of the blog and the company.

It didn’t take a long time to find a Ragheb audience. During the first three months of Trump in his post, executive officials registered at least four special meetings with those appointed to the president in the Public Services Department, which supervise the major federal contract. Some meetings were organized by the country’s senior purchasing officials, Josh Groenbum, Federal Service Commissioner.

GSA is to look to a slope to get part of the $ 700 billion internal expense card program, known as Smartpay. In recent weeks, Trump has moved in GSA quickly to take advantage of the RAMP program to obtain an accusation card with a value of up to $ 25 million, according to the sources of ProPublica, even at a time when the Ministry of Government in Musk is highlighted by the total contracts that were canceled through federal agencies.

Founded six years ago, supported by some of the strongest figures in the Silicon Valley. One of them is Peter Thil, the capitalist capitalist, who was one of the first supporters of Trump in the world of technology and who spent millions of Senate Speaker in Ohio, Ohio. Thiel’s FIRM, Founders Fund, has invested in seven separate rounds of financing for the slope, according to the data from Pitchbook. Last year, Thil said there was no one in a better position to “build products at the intersection of artificial intelligence and financing.

To date, the company raised about $ 2 billion in investment capital, according to the Crunchbase Function Tracking site, many of which are companies with relationships with Trump and Musk. Among the main financial supporters of the RAMP KEITH RABOIS from Khosla Ventures; Thrive Capital, founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump’s son -in -law Jared Kushner; And 8VC, a company run by musk allies.

The GRUENBAUM special attention, which explained it on the slope of the flags inside and outside the agency. “This contradicts all the regular contract guarantees that were created to prevent contracts from granting them based on whom you know,” said Scott Amy, General Adviser to the Party Project on Government Control. He said that professional civil service employees should lead the process to choose the best option for taxpayers.

A senior GSA official, who asked not to be identified for fear of revenge, said that the slope of high interest that was received was unusual, especially before the offer was announced. “You don’t want to give this impression that driving has already decided the winner in some way.”

GSA Propublica told “she refutes any suggestion of unfair or preferential contracting practices,” a spokesman added that “the credit card reform initiative was well known to the public in an attempt to treat waste, fraud and abuse.”

RAMP did not respond to the suspension requests.

Rabois, one of the oldest investors in RAMP, is part of an impressive group of technology mourners known as “PayPal”. Among the leaders of the early payments company are many influential players surrounding the Trump administration, including Musk and Thiel. Rabua and his wife Jacob Hilberg hosted a $ 1 million funding campaign in the Trump 2024 campaign, according to media reports. Trump nominated Hilberg for a major role in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Rabois sits on the RAMP board. He said he had no plans to join the Trump administration, instead, I told CNBC: “I have ideas, I can feed on them for the right people.” He told ProPublica that his comments on CNBC were about the ideas of the big photo policy and that “he had no participation in any government -related initiatives of the company.” “RAMP could be a great choice for any government that wants to improve its efficiency,” Rabua added.

Hilberg said he has no involvement “anything about the slope at all.”

Thrive Capital, Kushner, did not respond to the comment. A Thiel spokesman did not provide a comment. 8VC did not respond to the request for the comment, and the White House or Musk was not; Previously, Musk said, “I will reject myself,” if issues that oppose interests appear.

RAMP meetings with Grunbau – which comes from the KKR private stock company and have no previous government experience – came at an appropriate moment. GSA will be decided by the end of the year whether the Smartpay contract will be extended, and the preparations are in full swing for the next generation of the program. The value of Smartpay is hundreds of millions of dollars as fees for the financial institutions currently run by US Bank and Citibank.

Groenbauum and the director of GSA Stephen Ehikian entered the agency with a strong belief that Smartpay and other government payment programs were full of fraud or waste, causing great losses, says sources in GSA – an echo idea in the RAMP note in January.

However, the Republican Party and the Democratic Budget, as well as the former GSA officials, describes the view is not enlightened. Smartpay, which provides VISA and MasterCard fees for government employees, allows the federal workforce to buy supplies, office equipment, travel books and payment for gas.

Cards are usually used to finance travel and buy up to $ 10,000.

“Smartpay is the government of the government,” said Sony Hashemi, former GSA Commissioner Sony Hashemi, who supervised the program. “It is a good program that runs the problems of the real world … with exceptional levels of supervision and prevention of fraud.”

Jessica Ridel, a Republican Party budget expert at the Manhattan Institute, said the idea of ​​a large fraud in the technology of the graphics card was out of reach. Waste was criticized in government credit card programs before implementing the latest Smartpay system in 2018.

“This was a big problem about 20-25 years ago,” she said. “In the past 15 years, new controls have been placed in government credit card purchases.”

A review of the program for the year 2017 by the government accountability office concluded that there is a “small evidence of possible fraud” in the small Smartpay purchases, although it found documents errors. The most modern government audits have found some cases where officials have always used anti -fraud tools.

Sources said that the new GSA leaders are convinced that Smartpay is completely broken, a view in which they participated in special meetings. In February, they put one temporary limit on government cards and strongly registered the number of cards holders, and strangled the money for workers in this field.

The news organizations followed by chaos throughout the government said: Employees of the National Health Institutes of Health were unable to buy materials for experiments, and the Federal Aviation Administration workers who are concerned that they will not be able to pay in exchange for traveling to test systems in this field, and the National Park Service staff was unable to travel to supervise the road maintenance projects.

At that time, GSA issued a statement saying that the restrictions were “best practices to relieve risk” and began internally to move to Smartpay’s regeneration.

25 million dollars opportunity

The first bite of RAMP from Smartpay can come through a $ 25 million pilot program, GSA announced several weeks of the agency’s start with the company.

At the tail of the Biden Administration, GSA sent a request to get information, or RFI, which seeks to get industry inputs on how to improve the next Smartpay repetition. But some industrial players who provided responses said they had not heard from the government. Instead, GSA started meeting with RAMP.

GSA put a new RFI program for the experimental program on March 20, 2025, which leaves it open for less than seven working days.

John Wheeler, co -founder of the non -profit research group, said that the Information Technology Consultative Council, this short window appears to be unusual. “A week is nothing, it gives the impression that they have already chosen the winner,” said Wheeler, who worked with Republican senator Chuck Grassley to investigate information technology issues.

RAMP is the “preferred” clear, to secure this work, one source inside GSA and another former official of PROPUBLICA said. The winner has not yet been announced.

Procurer experts told ProPublica that consulting with industrial leaders before comprehensive repair is a good practice-but the fact-finding process should be prepared and the leadership of professional contract officers.

“That is, all contacts with potential sellers, many of which were part of market research in order to provide the best solution to American taxpayers,” said GSA spokesman. The agency refused to answer questions about whether RAMP has already been chosen internally to make Smartpay.

The experimental program is unique because it uses a special GSA purchase known as the opening of commercial solutions. This process was used by the Pentagon to help accelerate the acquisition of products for fighters in armed conflict areas. The appointment means that the chosen contractor can be chosen faster and without the same level of controls.

It is not clear how the slope originally got special meetings with GSA leaders. Also, it is not clear whether the slope will eventually hold the entire Smartpay contract of Citibank and US Bank. US Bank and Citibank spokesperson refused to comment.

It is clear that the slope road had no client like the federal government. The only partner in the public sector listed on his web page is a rented school network in Nashville, Tennessee.

However, even before RFI publicly announced, RAMP began to communicate with communications in the payment industry asking about the bank’s private identity numbers required to process government payments. Two former GSA officials, such steps, said another sign that RAMP was preparing to work on the program.

RAMP meetings come with GSA as the agency is preparing to take over a more important role in spending decisions throughout the government. On the same day as the Smartpay pilot was announced, Trump issued an executive command seeking to decently most government purchases within GSA. The DOGE initiative is effectively located outside the agency-employees installed the family and stitches for the stay overnight in the building, and the right MUSK man Steve Davis is the main adviser to the agency’s leadership.

The negotiation has been transferred to the Smartpay contract so far under the radar. But the changes in the credit card program can increase the transfer of daily life for federal employees and change how agencies work mainly. It also represents a giant job opportunity.

“There is a lot of money that a new company must come up here,” said Hashemi, a former GSA official. “But you have to ask: What is the problem that is solved?”