Ramp Positions Itself to Earn a Piece of the U.S. Government’s Multimillion-Dollar Card Program

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has made waves in 2025 with its work to eliminate wasteful spending in government. DOGE’s efforts have put credit cards in its crosshairs at times as the department aims to uncover instances in which government employees have access to cards they don’t need, at least in DOGE’s opinion.

Special Government Employee Elon Musk has taken to his social media platform, X, in the last few months to communicate DOGE’s accomplishments.

Last week, Musk wrote in a post titled “Credit Card Update!” that “the program to audit unused/unneeded credit cards has been expanded to 30 agencies. After 7 weeks, about ~470K cards have been de-activated. As a reminder, at the start of the audit, there were about ~4.6M active cards/accounts, so still more work to do.”

Ramp, a fintech outfit that offers corporate cards and solutions to help businesses manage spend, is seeking to partner with the federal government to provide charge cards to government employees, per a recent ProPublica report. 

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is involved in how the government uses and provides acquisition services, real estate, and technology. 

The government’s internal card program is known as SmartPay and is worth $700 billion. According to GSA’s website, “the GSA SmartPay program is the largest government charge card and commercial payment solutions program in the world.”

Lindsay McKinley, Ramp’s Head of Communications, confirmed to TechCrunch a few days ago that the GSA is considering using the company for a pilot program for charge cards. Ramp “is competing in a standard procurement process for a SmartPay pilot program based on the strength of our solution,” McKinley said.

The government’s increased focus on finding and eliminating pockets of wasteful spending by federal employees has seemingly found an ally in Ramp.

“Ramp’s technology has prevented billions of dollars in wasted spend across the economy, and if chosen, we’ll bring those same results to the American taxpayer,” McKinley continued.

Securing a piece of the government’s charge card program could provide a significant boost to Ramp’s bottom line. Sources confirmed to ProPublica that appointees of President Donald Trump who work in the GSA are seeking to grant Ramp a pilot program for charge cards that has a value of up to $25 million.

That may not come as a surprise to those who have been watching Ramp’s communications in recent months. McKinley’s comments to TechCrunch about combatting wasteful spending are just the tip of the iceberg.

Ramp CEO Eric Glyman co-authored an extensive blog post just days before Trump began his second term as president. The post, titled “The Efficiency Formula,” covered budgetary concerns in the federal government and the benefits of eliminating inefficiencies in the spending practices of government employees.

“Increased context and control could prevent fraudulent transactions, leverage context around individuals and businesses to flag suspicious activity, and put predetermined limits on certain types of spending,” the blog post read.

The blog’s authors defined “context” as “understanding where your spend is going”.

The post may have caught the eye of high-ranking government officials. ProPublica reports that Ramp executives have held private meetings with Trump appointees within the General Services Administration no less than four times over the past three months. 

Josh Gruenbaum, the Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, organized a few of those meetings between Ramp executives and GSA staffers, ProPublica revealed. Gruenbaum’s role in the government stands to gain increased attention as the Trump administration places more emphasis on procurement processes.

Last week, Trump issued an executive order titled “Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement,” which outlined the administration’s stance that “conducting business with the Federal Government is often prohibitively inefficient and costly.” The administration’s goal, the order continued, is to create the “most agile, effective, and efficient procurement system possible.”

Improving the government’s procurement system is a goal of the Trump administration.

The government could use Ramp’s solutions to oversee and control card spend by government employees. Ramp’s products allow program administrators to monitor spending and block expenditures that don’t align with purchasing policies.

A high-profile government contract would be an impressive achievement for Ramp, a company that just celebrated its sixth anniversary in March.

But McKinley cautioned that — despite Ramp’s repeated engagements with members of the Trump team in 2025 — the company isn’t guaranteed to provide a portion of the General Service Administration’s card program. 

One of Ramp’s former customers introduced the company to the GSA in February 2025, TechCrunch reported, and it is participating in the government’s evaluative procedures. 

“Since then we have demonstrated the product and are now part of a standard RFI process,” McKinley said. “We have no indication of whether we’ll be selected.”