ChatGPT Told Musk’s DOGE a Museum Heating Grant Was DEI

Court filings reveal that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) used ChatGPT to display screen federal humanities grants for range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) content material. The chatbot flagged a museum’s $349,000 HVAC grant as DEI.

The screening is detailed in a lawsuit accusing DOGE of violating First Amendment and equal-protection rights by cuts to National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants.

DOGE’s Money Saving Mandate

DOGE launched as a White House advisory group, not a formal company, on Trump’s first day in workplace. Musk served as its de facto chief till leaving in May 2025.

By November 2025, DOGE had stopped working as a centralized entity, in response to Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor.

How the ChatGPT Screening Worked

According to a spreadsheet entered as evidence, DOGE staffers Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh prompted ChatGPT to guage whether or not NEH proposals associated to DEI. They then acted on its solutions.

The High Point Museum in North Carolina sought funds to interchange an ageing system that preserves its collections. ChatGPT stated the improve would assist extra guests and tagged the proposal DEI.

DOGE cancelled the grant. However, the museum’s director, Edith Brady, instructed Fortune it recovered about 70% of the award by a termination clause.

DOGE flagged solely two of the 11 HVAC-related proposals it reviewed as DEI. The different got here from Vermont’s Shelburne Museum, in search of assist with climate-related constructing dangers. ChatGPT tagged it for addressing environmental sustainability in heritage preservation.

Letting AI Do The Work

The sample was not remoted. DOGE reviewed 1,163 NEH grant proposals by ChatGPT, flagging 1,057 and protecting simply 42. The cuts erased roughly half the company’s annual price range.

Meanwhile, appearing NEH chairman Michael McDonald said that many focused tasks have been innocent by way of selling DEI. That suggests deficit discount, not ideology, partly drove the cuts.

Four scholarly and literary teams, together with the American Historical Association and the Authors Guild, are suing over the cuts. The case could check whether or not outsourcing DEI judgment calls to an AI chatbot survives authorized scrutiny.

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