Two former operatives of the controversial Department of Government Efficiency have launched a new artificial intelligence company called Special, backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Elon Musk ally Steve Davis and others formerly associated with the government-slashing unit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox are calling the venture \u201cDOGE for the private sector.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The pair went viral earlier this spring when the American Historical Association publicly posted hours of legal depositions<\/a> online during a lawsuit over the mass termination of 1,400-plus grants at the National Endowment of the Humanities.\u00a0<\/p>\n At NEH, Fox \u2014 named as a defendant in that lawsuit alongside Cavanaugh \u2014 used AI to decide what grants to cancel by asking ChatGPT if NEH grants involved diversity, equity and inclusion.<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon ruled<\/a> last month that the resulting mass termination of grants was unconstitutional, calling the move a \u201ctextbook example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.\u201d The cancellation of grants also violated due process and was done without statutory authority, wrote McMahon.<\/p>\n Now, Cavanaugh and Fox are focused on using an operating system being built by Special to automate manual tasks inside critical service businesses, Cavanaugh wrote in a blog\u00a0post<\/a> about the company. To do this, the DOGE alumni are acquiring companies and pursuing vertical integration.<\/p>\n The new company has one healthcare-focused vertical so far, called Figure Health, in which they\u2019re using the operating model in the name of improving common tasks like patient intake and billing. A first acquisition is underway in Texas. Special didn\u2019t respond to a request for additional details.<\/p>\n Before DOGE, Fox worked in private equity. Cavanaugh joined DOGE after starting a series of tech companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n