Justin Fox and Nathan Cavanaugh plan to acquire companies and apply the same AI-driven cost-cutting playbook they used inside the federal government.
Two former staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency have decided to take their government cost-cutting playbook private. Justin Fox and Nathan Cavanaugh, who both left DOGE in the summer of 2025, are launching a venture that plans to acquire companies and reduce operational waste using AI, essentially the same approach they deployed while analyzing federal spending under the Trump administration.
From federal grants to private acquisitions #
During their time at DOGE, Fox and Cavanaugh used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to analyze grant requests across federal agencies. The result, according to their own accounts, was the identification of $100 million in potential cuts, including reductions at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
By March 2026, the pair’s AI-assisted analysis had flagged 1,477 grants recommended for termination.
DOGE was established in 2025 with an ambitious target: up to $2 trillion in federal spending cuts. Fox and Cavanaugh’s contributions were reportedly insufficient to meaningfully dent that goal.
Who are Fox and Cavanaugh? #
Fox graduated from the University of Virginia in 2020 and comes from a private equity background.
Cavanaugh is a tech startup founder who attended Indiana University. He previously founded Flow Finance, an AI-based accounting software company. Public filings disclosed the company’s financial value at between $500K and $1M.
What this means for investors #
The venture hasn’t disclosed specific acquisition targets or funding details. As of June 2026, no specific acquisition targets or funding details for their new AI venture have been disclosed in the public domain.
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