On July 21, 2025, The New York Post published an article claiming that while Pete Buttigieg was secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the agency spent $80 billion on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) grants while delaying air traffic control (ATC) upgrades.
The New York Post (NYP) report was shared on Facebook and X, where one user said it highlighted why Buttigieg "will never be president."
Its top three paragraphs read:
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg failed to replace outdated air traffic control systems while in office — with his agency instead shelling out tens of billions of dollars on a DEI agenda, according to federal spending records and airline industry insiders.
In one meeting, Buttigieg — who is said to be eyeing a 2028 presidential run — told industry executives that air traffic control upgrades would just allow them to fly more planes, "and so why would that be in his interest?" sources said.
What his department was really interested in was handing out hundreds of diversity, equity and inclusion grants totaling more than $80 billion over four years — at least half of the DOT's entire budget for a typical fiscal year, records show.
However, Snopes found that the article lacked a transparent explanation for how it reached such conclusions. Our fact check aims to interrogate both claims made in the NYP article — that Buttigieg's DOT supposedly spent $80 billion on DEI grants and that he delayed upgrades to the country's ATC systems.
The 'DEI grants'
The NYP article did not define what it meant by a DEI grant, which made it difficult to determine the veracity of this claim. The outlet is known for having a conservative bias, and the tactic of criticizing a member of former U.S. President Joe Biden's administration by using a buzzword with an unclear definition, like DEI, is largely consistent with how U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has used the term. Snopes contacted the writer for clarification on how the story defined a DEI grant but never heard back. We also attempted to reach out to representatives of Buttigieg. Therefore, it was not clear how the NYP reached the $80 billion figure.
In the first instance the number appeared in the article, the text was hyperlinked to a DOT webpage (archived) titled, "U.S. Department of Transportation Accomplishments Overview — January 2021-January 2025."
However, both the DOT webpage and the NYP article referenced something called "Justice40," an environmental justice initiative created by Biden's administration that required "40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments" to "flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution."
The White House included a list of the programs included in the initiative (archived), including 40 different DOT programs, none of which was related to air travel. Therefore, this could be what the NYP was referring to when referencing DEI grants.
The DOT webpage noted that the Justice40 program was incorporated into the 40 DOT grants with about "$150 billion in contract authority," and that "55 percent of the benefits" reached those communities. Fifty five percent of $150 billion is $82.5 billion,
Snopes also looked at reproducing the number using USASpending, the open-access source for all federal
'Delayed' air traffic control funding
The NYP's source for the claim that Buttigieg delayed ATC funding was an unnamed "air industry official." Therefore, it was not possible to verify the source's comments due to the anonymity.
On Feb. 6, 2025, Margaret Wallace, an assistant professor who teaches air traffic control and airport management at the Florida Institute of Technology, told NPR that the U.S. is "well behind compared to other countries" when it comes to radar systems, during a discussion about the country's ATC technology.
But updating ATC systems means spending money, and
However, there is evidence that Buttigieg did spend money on upgrading the ATC systems.
The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed while Buttigieg was transportation secretary,
Given that ATC must operate at all hours, year-round, any upgrades must be installed alongside a still-functioning old system. Therefore, that old system, as
Chris Meagher, a spokesperson for Buttigieg,
It is worth noting that the NYP article appeared to frame the two priorities as connected — Buttigieg's DOT delayed long-overdue air traffic control upgrades so that the agency could spend more on DEI grants.
However, as shown above, there was not enough evidence to support either the claim that Buttigieg's DOT spent $80 billion on DEI grants or that it delayed ATC upgrades. There was even less evidence to suggest the two were connected.
Again, the transportation secretary only has minimal control over the budget. Congress, not the Biden administration, decided how to allocate the $1 trillion of infrastructure investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Congress decided that $5 billion would go to ATC upgrade funding, and roughly $150 billion would go to DOT programs impacted by the Biden administration's Justice40 initiative.
It was not clear if the NYP article intended to prove that Buttigieg, as transport secretary, siphoned off funds meant for ATC repairs to spend them on DEI grants instead. If this was the intention, the evidence was lacking. As noted earlier, the Justice40 funding was never earmarked for anything to do with air travel.
In sum, the two pools of money were completely separate, and Congress, not Buttigieg, decided how those funding pools were allocated.
The NYP, and other outlets with a political bias, often frame stories in such a way when covering individuals or organizations with opposing views. Snopes has investigated such stories in the past.