Granite School District workers found themselves fielding a flood of threatening messages Friday after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on social media platform X accused the district of misusing COVID-19 relief funds on an education conference in Las Vegas.
The DOGE post was later amplified by a Fox News report, which the district contends contained “factual errors,” according to a district spokesperson.
Most of the messages came from out of state, with some threatening violence against staff members, the spokesperson said. That prompted officials to involve Granite School District police, which determined the threats weren’t credible.
The Feb. 19 post on X alleged that schools across the country “have spent nearly $200B of COVID-Relief funds with little oversight or impact on students.” It said $393,000 was used to rent out a Major League Baseball stadium, $86,000 was spent on hotel rooms at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and $60,000 was spent on “swimming pool passes, and even an ice cream truck.”
The $86,000 figure seemed to be attributed to Granite School District, and the collective DOGE allegations seemed to stem from a blog by the far-right parent group Parents Defending Education, which was linked in the X post.
Musk's DOGE posted on X Feb. 19 accusing the Granite School District of misusing COVID-19 relief funds for an 2022 education conference in Las Vegas.
The national organization works to “reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas,” and to combat “ideologically driven curriculum with a concerning and often divisive emphasis on students’ group identities,” according to its website.
The group’s blog, dated Feb. 14, appeared to compile excerpts from various news articles on schools’ COVID-relief spending, spotlighting specific districts throughout the U.S.
“And in the Granite Public Schools in Utah,” the blog read — using a direct quote from a 2023 article by The 74, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. education system — “roughly $86,000 in relief funds covered accommodations at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas last summer for teams from 14 schools to attend an annual conference.”
Granite School District, which serves much of northern Salt Lake County, confirmed that The 74 filed an open records request in 2022 for the district’s COVID-relief spending. Andrea Stringham, the district spokesperson, said officials in response provided over 90 purchase orders to the news organization.
Superintendent Ben Horsley, who at the time was the district’s spokesperson, was quoted in The 74 article, saying state officials never questioned the conference expenses, because they were a “critical component of helping schools improve instruction.”
On Friday, Fox News published its article about the DOGE X post, reporting that DOGE “revealed” how schools spent billions in COVID-relief funds. The article highlighted the Granite district’s Las Vegas expenditures — without mentioning the conference itself.
“Granite Public Schools in Utah spent their COVID-relief funds on $86,000 in hotel rooms at Caesars Palace, a ritzy Las Vegas casino,” the Fox News article read, citing “a report by Parents Defending Education and shared by DOGE.”
After that, Stringham said, the threats started pouring in.
“Our district offices were flooded with dozens of angry phone calls, emails, and social media posts,” Stringham said. “Mostly from out of state. Many of these calls and emails contained explicit language and threats of violence against our staff.”
The onslaught continued into Friday evening, “which monopolized many hours of district employees’ time,” Stringham said.
Granite defends conference spending
By Friday afternoon, Granite School District posted a statement on its website defending its use of COVID-relief funding on the conference.
“We refute any impropriety for having our educators participate in this conference,” the statement said. “The Fox News national story contains many factual errors and no one from their organization has ever contacted us to verify the facts of the report.”
The Salt Lake Tribune reached out to FOX News and President Donald Trump’s administration for comment, but neither immediately responded.
In 2020 and 2021, Congress approved three rounds of COVID-relief funding for public and private schools, totaling $190 billion.
Utah received roughly $1 billion, and Granite School District was the state’s top awardee, receiving $152.4 million.
Among the approved uses for the funds — including personal protective equipment, infrastructure upgrades and work to mitigate learning loss — is professional development. The 2022 conference in Las Vegas, Granite School District said in its statement, fell under that category.
Granite said 123 of its educators attended the conference hosted by Solution Tree, a “highly reputable organization that provides effective professional development for educators from across the nation,” according to Granite’s statement.
For each participant, the district paid the government rate for a standard room at an average cost of $220 per night, according to the statement.
“At the time, the closest available conference location was in Las Vegas, which was also the most cost-effective option being only several hours from Salt Lake City,” the district statement said.
In order to receive COVID-relief dollars, Utah school districts were required to submit a plan to the Utah State Board of Education. Granite’s plan included “professional development” and was approved by the state school board.
“To be clear, there is no investigation into the use of these funds, which were approved by the Utah State Board of Education in full compliance with all applicable state and federal guidelines,” Granite’s statement read. “As such, we were surprised to be accused of fraud without having some contact from anyone to verify the legitimacy of the expense.”
This isn’t the first time a social media post has led to threats against a Utah school district.
Last year, a video depicting Mt. Nebo middle schoolers walking out of class circulated on far-right social media, with posts stating the students were protesting because the district was allegedly allowing student “furries” to “terrorize” other students.
“Students claim that the furries bite them, bark at them, and pounce on them without repercussion,” one post read from Libs of TikTok, an account on X that shares anti-LGBTQ posts and other clips geared at generating right-wing outrage. “However, if they defend themselves in any way, they get in trouble.”
The Nebo School District attempted to debunk what district officials described as “false claims,” but the middle school was plagued by hoax bomb threats for weeks after the video went viral.
“While difficult to articulate an exact cost, hyperbolic stories shared in the media and social media posts that lack context directly contribute to an erosion of trust in public education,” Stringham said, on behalf of Granite. “The accusation from the DOGE is completely false, and their social media post is intentionally misleading.”
