Josh Gruenbaum knows that almost no one has ever heard of the Federal Acquisition Service, the federal agency that he left a high-profile job at private equity giant KKR to run, and he’s OK with that. 

He sees the agency that oversees procurement and contracting for the entire federal government as a good place to go for someone who enjoys the intricacies of financial systems and agrees with Elon Musk’s vision of government efficiency. 

It is also, as Gruenbaum has been pleased to discover, an unexpected avenue for fighting antisemitism — because as Gruenbaum sees it, why should the federal government enter into lucrative contracts with partners who are out of step with the Trump administration’s priorities?

“If it’s a privilege to do business with the federal government, you better be acting in the fashion that this administration and the American people have voted in, in terms of what a good counter-party looks like,” Gruenbaum told Jewish Insider in an interview on Thursday. “This administration does not tolerate hate in the form of antisemitism. So I think the way you translate that to contracts and grants is you look at, well, what sort of partner should this federal government be doing business with?”

An early answer to that question came on Friday, when a Trump administration task force focused on combating antisemitism announced that the federal government cancelation of $400 million in federal contracts and grants to Columbia University “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students,” according to a press release. Leo Terrell, a senior counsel at the Justice Department who chairs the task force, said the funding cuts, which took effect immediately, are “only the beginning.” 

When the task force was announced in February, its member agencies included the U.S. Departments of Education, Justice and Health and Human Services. Gruenbaum, who is now a member of the task force, immediately reached out to offer the assistance of FAS, a wonky agency embedded in the General Services Administration, which also manages all of the property owned by the federal government.

“It struck me as very obvious that FAS is sitting in the center … the task force is multiagency, and GSA almost embodies the idea of being interagency itself,” Gruenbaum said. “It was well-received immediately by the DOJ, HHS and Ed. So it’s been a very embracing and collaborative relationship.” 

He likened the quest to root out contracts with institutions that are not doing enough to counter antisemitism to similar Trump administration efforts to end funding for other liberal priorities that had been left over from the Biden administration.

“It’s not drastically different than some of the lower-hanging fruit of some things in the DEI category or in the climate and sustainability category, and it contradicts what this administration is saying its missions and goals are,” Gruenbaum said. 

Gruenbaum grew up in an Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor whose entire family was killed by the Nazis. That connection to Judaism has shaped his worldview, Gruenbaum explained, and drove his political engagement in the 2024 election.

“I come from a community where Jewish values and the Jewish religion were very important. That is part and parcel to how I was raised and how I think about the world and where I get my moral compass from,” Gruenbaum said. “I think for me, specifically as an American Jew, post-Oct. 7, a lot of issues that bubbled up for the Jewish community became even more in focus for me. So when the election started taking shape, and [Donald] Trump won, and Elon Musk and the rest of the crew announced this DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] effort — for me, it was like this coming of everything I’ve been trying to put together.” 

After spending several years studying at a yeshiva, Gruenbaum started his professional career at his father’s food importing business before earning a law degree and an MBA from New York University. He spent four years at the investment bank Moelis before moving to KKR.

“You can imagine that the federal government buys a lot of things and has a lot of spend, and so having someone who’s used to dealing with large quantities of money and working in negotiations and things of that nature is probably to the benefit of the taxpayer,” said Daniel Gelfarb, an investor who worked with Gruenbaum at Moelis. “He’s doing this out of a desire to help the country and to help make our government more efficient and more effective.”

Trump’s desire to overhaul federal spending appealed to Gruenbaum, who has implemented a broad examination of federal contracts. In recent weeks, he has held meetings with executives from top U.S. consulting firms, who are appearing before him to defend their federal contracts and propose new ideas.  

“We’re kind of careening towards a really bad financial outcome that could be, from my perspective, the undoing of the American economy,” Gruenbaum said. “I thought this was the right opportunity for me to step in, offer my services in the public sector for the first time and try to make an impact.” 

At other agencies, across-the-board cuts have inadvertently affected important federal programs and faced public backlash. “When we make mistakes, we’ll fix it very quickly. So, for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention,” Musk said in February. 

Gruenbaum declined to share specifics about the contracts with Columbia that are being canceled. But he said everything — including research grants — is on the table, while adding that the intention is to be “very surgical and very responsible” about what is being cut. 

“I think the [antisemitism] task force is going to do its job responsibly, but also it’s going to do its job with a strong backbone and a strong purpose,” Gruenbaum noted.