4 days earlier than Donald Trump’s inauguration, monetary expertise startup Ramp revealed a pitch for the way to deal with wasteful authorities spending. In a 4,000-word weblog put up titled “The Effectivity Method,” Ramp’s CEO and certainly one of its traders echoed concepts much like these promoted by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk: Federal packages had been overrun by fraud, and commonsense enterprise methods may present a fast repair.
Ramp sells company bank cards and synthetic intelligence software program for companies to investigate spending. And whereas the agency seems to don’t have any current federal contracts, the put up implied the federal government ought to think about hiring it. Simply as Ramp helped companies handle their budgets, the corporate “may do the identical for quite a lot of authorities businesses,” in line with the weblog and firm social media posts.
It didn’t take lengthy for Ramp to discover a prepared viewers. Inside Trump’s first three months in workplace, its executives scored not less than 4 non-public conferences with the president’s appointees on the Normal Providers Administration, which oversees main federal contracting. A few of the conferences had been organized by the nation’s high procurement officer, Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service.
GSA is eying Ramp to get a chunk of the federal government’s $700 billion inner expense card program, generally known as SmartPay. In current weeks, Trump appointees at GSA have been shifting shortly to faucet Ramp for a cost card pilot program value as much as $25 million, sources advised ProPublica, whilst Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity highlights the multitudes of contracts it has canceled throughout federal businesses.
Based six years in the past, Ramp is backed by a few of the strongest figures in Silicon Valley. One is Peter Thiel, the billionaire enterprise capitalist who was certainly one of Trump’s earliest supporters within the tech world and who spent thousands and thousands aiding Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio Senate run. Thiel’s agency, Founders Fund, has invested in seven separate rounds of funding for Ramp, in line with information from PitchBook. Final 12 months Thiel mentioned there was “nobody higher positioned” to construct merchandise on the intersection of AI and finance.
Up to now, the corporate has raised about $2 billion in enterprise capital, in line with startup monitoring web site Crunchbase, a lot of it from corporations with ties to Trump and Musk. Ramp’s different main monetary backers embody Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures; Thrive Capital, based by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and 8VC, a agency run by Musk allies.
The particular consideration Gruenbaum paid to Ramp raised flags inside and out of doors the company. “This goes in opposition to all the traditional contracting safeguards which are set as much as stop contracts from being awarded primarily based on who ,” mentioned Scott Amey, the overall counsel with the bipartisan Venture on Authorities Oversight. He mentioned profession civil servants ought to lead the method to choose your best option for taxpayers.
A senior GSA official, who requested anonymity for worry of retribution, mentioned the excessive stage consideration Ramp obtained was uncommon, particularly earlier than a bid had been made public. “You don’t wish to give this impression that management has already determined the winner by some means.”
GSA advised ProPublica it “refutes any suggestion of unfair or preferential contracting practices,” with a spokesperson including that the “bank card reform initiative has been well-known to the general public in an effort to deal with waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Ramp didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Rabois, certainly one of Ramp’s earliest traders, is a part of an influential group of tech titans generally known as the “PayPal Mafia.” Leaders of the early funds firm embody a number of influential gamers surrounding the Trump administration, together with Musk and Thiel. Rabois and his husband, Jacob Helberg, hosted a fundraiser that pulled in upwards of $1 million for Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign, in line with media reviews. Trump has nominated Helberg for a senior function on the State Division.
Rabois sits on Ramp’s board of administrators. He has mentioned he had no plans to hitch the Trump administration, as an alternative telling CNBC: “I’ve concepts, I can spoon-feed them to the proper individuals.” He advised ProPublica his feedback to CNBC had been about big-picture coverage concepts and that he had “no involvement in any government-related initiatives for the corporate.” Ramp “could possibly be an incredible alternative for any authorities that wishes to enhance its efficiencies,” Rabois added.
Helberg mentioned he has no involvement “in something associated to Ramp by any means.”
Thrive Capital, Kushner’s agency, didn’t reply to a request for remark. A spokesperson for Thiel didn’t present a remark. 8VC didn’t reply to a request for remark, nor did the White Home or Musk; beforehand, Musk has mentioned “I’ll recuse myself” if conflict-of-interest points come up.
Ramp’s conferences with Gruenbaum — who comes from non-public fairness agency KKR and has no prior authorities expertise — got here at an opportune second. GSA will determine by 12 months’s finish whether or not to increase the SmartPay contract, and preparations are afoot for the following era of this system. SmartPay has been value a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in charges for the monetary establishments that presently function it, U.S. Financial institution and Citibank.
Gruenbaum and performing GSA administrator Stephen Ehikian entered the company with a robust perception that SmartPay and different authorities fee packages had been rife with fraud or waste, inflicting enormous losses, sources inside GSA say — an thought echoed in Ramp’s January memo.
But each GOP and Democratic finances consultants, in addition to former GSA officers, describe that view as ill-informed. SmartPay, which offers Visa and Mastercard cost playing cards to authorities workers, allows the federal workforce to buy workplace provides and tools, ebook journey and pay for gasoline.
The playing cards usually are used to fund journey and purchases as much as $10,000.
“SmartPay is the lifeblood of the federal government,” mentioned former GSA commissioner Sonny Hashmi, who oversaw this system. “It’s a well-run program that solves actual world issues … with distinctive ranges of oversight and fraud prevention already baked in.”
Jessica Riedl, a GOP finances skilled on the conservative Manhattan Institute suppose tank, mentioned the notion that there was vital fraud within the cost card expertise was far-fetched. She had criticized waste in authorities bank card packages earlier than the most recent SmartPay system was carried out in 2018.
“This was an enormous drawback about 20-25 years in the past,” she mentioned. “Up to now 15 years, there have been new controls put into authorities bank card purchases.”
A 2017 audit of this system by the Authorities Accountability Workplace concluded there was “little proof of potential fraud” in SmartPay small purchases, although it discovered documentation errors. Newer authorities audits discovered some situations the place officers didn’t all the time use anti-fraud instruments.
GSA’s new leaders are satisfied SmartPay is fully damaged, a view they shared in non-public conferences, sources mentioned. In February, they put a brief $1 restrict on authorities playing cards and severely restricted the variety of cardholders, choking off funds to employees within the area.
Chaos ensued throughout the federal government, information organizations reported: Employees on the Nationwide Institutes of Well being had been reportedly unable to buy supplies for experiments, Federal Aviation Administration employees nervous they’d be unable to pay for journey to check programs within the area, and Nationwide Park Service workers couldn’t journey to supervise highway upkeep tasks.
On the time, GSA launched an announcement saying the restrictions had been “danger mitigation greatest observe” and internally started shifting to revamp SmartPay.
$25 Million Alternative
Ramp’s first chunk of the SmartPay enterprise may come via a pilot program value as much as $25 million that GSA introduced a number of weeks after company management started assembly with the corporate.
On the tail finish of the Biden administration, GSA had despatched out a request for data, or RFI, in search of business enter about the way to enhance the following iteration of SmartPay. However some business gamers who submitted responses mentioned they didn’t hear again from the federal government. As an alternative, GSA began assembly with Ramp.
GSA put out a brand new RFI for the pilot program on March 20, 2025, leaving it open for lower than seven enterprise days.
John Weiler, co-founder of the nonprofit analysis group the IT Acquisition Advisory Council, mentioned such a brief window appeared uncommon. “Per week is nothing, it gives the look they’d already picked the winner,” mentioned Weiler, who has labored with Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley to research IT contracting points.
Ramp is the clear-cut “favourite,” to safe this work, one supply inside GSA and one other former official advised ProPublica. The winner has not but been introduced.
Procurement consultants advised ProPublica that consulting with business leaders earlier than a serious overhaul is sweet observe — however that the fact-finding course of should be evenhanded and led by skilled contracting officers.
The GSA spokesperson mentioned that “any and all communications with potential distributors, of which there have been a number of, has been part of market analysis as a way to present the perfect answer for American taxpayers.” The company declined to reply questions on whether or not Ramp had already been chosen internally for SmartPay work.
The pilot program is exclusive as a result of it makes use of a particular GSA buying authority generally known as business options opening. This course of has been utilized by the Pentagon to assist pace up the acquisition of merchandise for fighters in armed battle zones. The designation means the chosen contractor may be chosen sooner and with out the identical stage of controls.
It’s not clear how Ramp initially secured non-public conferences with GSA leaders. Neither is it clear if Ramp will in the end take over all the SmartPay contract from Citibank and U.S. Financial institution. Spokespeople for U.S. Financial institution and Citibank declined to remark.
It’s clear that Ramp has by no means had a shopper just like the federal authorities. The one public-sector companion listed on its webpage is a constitution college community in Nashville, Tennessee.
Nonetheless, even earlier than the RFI was publicly introduced, Ramp had begun reaching out to contacts within the fee business asking concerning the particular financial institution identification numbers required to course of authorities funds, mentioned an business supply. Such steps, two former GSA officers mentioned, had been one other signal that Ramp was getting ready to work on this system.
Ramp’s conferences with GSA come because the company is poised to tackle a extra vital function in spending choices throughout authorities. The identical day the SmartPay pilot was introduced, Trump issued an govt order that seeks to centralize a lot of presidency procurement inside GSA. The DOGE initiative has been successfully headquartered out of the company — staffers have put in beds and dressers for in a single day stays within the constructing, and Musk’s right-hand man Steve Davis is a key adviser to the company’s management.
The SmartPay contract negotiation has up to now flown beneath the radar. However modifications to the bank card program may additional rework each day life for federal workers and essentially change how businesses function. It additionally represents a large enterprise alternative.
“There’s some huge cash to be made by a brand new firm coming in right here,” mentioned Hashmi, the previous GSA official. “However it’s important to ask: What’s the drawback that’s being solved?”
Doris Burke contributed analysis.
