Mark Cuban wants to fill the void created by Musk's cuts

Billionaire business mogul Mark Cuban is aiming to clean up after the Department of Government Efficiency.

The longtime critic of Donald Trump is fielding business pitches from former and current federal staffers at the General Services Administration and White House to fill tech gaps that federal workforce layoffs have left, he told POLITICO. He is effectively looking to back new companies that would sell back technology skills to the government that the U.S. Digital Service — and a small tech-focused department called 18F — offered before the offices were rocked by voluntary departures and mass terminations.

GSA’s 18F tech unit was charged with modernizing and building the government’s critical tech services like Login.gov, the central login system for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other programs. And the USDS, housed in the White House, was responsible for streamlining processes for recruitment, digital service procurement and modernizing government sites.

These departments offered services government officials and Elon Musk previously said were worth growing. But in late February, 21 USDS staffers announced they would resign instead of helping Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which had absorbed USDS. And on March 1, GSA dissolved 18F after administration and agency officials declared it “non-critical,” according to an internal memo. In Cuban’s vision, his reformed tech company would be profitable, a philosophy that runs afoul the federal government’s ethos to offer public goods and services. It’s a view that’s not too far from Musk’s, which aims to run the government like a business.

It’s not entirely clear how this business would be profitable. Federal contracting companies are beholden to federal agencies that determine when the government can outsource and finance their help for a project, and top Trump administration and GSA officials have shown no indication they want to remake 18F and USDS. That’s partly because the 18F unit — which was supposed to be self-sustaining through fees it charges federal agencies for its services — has instead produced a “long-term shortfall of multi millions of dollars,” a GSA spokesperson said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/12/mark-cuban-doge-technology-services-00227218