News/Commentary

DOGE finds $300M in COVID loans given to kids 11-years-old and younger

March 10, 2025 | | Print Article

Loans that rushed out during COVID strained credulity for DOGE, as one detail concerning over $300 million had some wondering if the money was spent at the LEGO Store.

During President Donald Trump’s address last week, he shone a spotlight on the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency that included exposure of the questionable ages of individuals on the Social Security rolls.

Saturday, the Elon Musk-led organization raised new concerns about the age of recipients of taxpayer-funded programs as nearly 5,600 loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA) listed children under 11 years old as the borrower.

“In 2020-2021, SBA granted 5,593 loans for $312M to borrowers whose only listed owner was 11 years or younger at the time of the loan,” DOGE posted on X. “While it is possible to have business arrangements where this is legal, that is highly unlikely for these 5,593 loans, as they all also used an SSN (Social Security number) with the incorrect name.”

The organization tacked the latest revelation onto a post from earlier in the week where DOGE made note of over 3,000 loans, which included the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans, amounting to “$333M to borrowers over 115 years old who were still marked as alive in the Social Security database.”

“In one case, a 157 years old individual received $36k in loans,” revealed the group rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse that assured Saturday, “@DOGE and SBAgov are working together to solve this problem this week.”

As had previously been reported, Musk joked, “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” when the DOGE team exposed hundreds of millions of people in the Social Security database with the “death field set to FALSE,” including millions from 100- to 170-years-old, and even one older than the nation.

Even before DOGE had gotten underway, the abuse of PPP loans was well-documented, and efforts continue to root out offending parties.

At the beginning of the year, Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR) Brian Miller contacted Iowa Senator Joni Ernst (R), founder of the Senate DOGE Caucus, with concerns that the SIGPR would be shuttered before the work could be completed.

“Without SIGPR to protect the taxpayer, there will be no one on watch, which will allow this crisis to continue,” he warned, as more than $1.27 billion was reported lost by the loan programs by Nov. 2024. “Of equal concern is an alarming rate of defaults by borrowers who are failing to pay even the interest payments on the loans for the Main Street Lending Program (MSLP) and the Direct Loan Program.”

While Ernst promised efforts to reform the SBA and sought an extension of SIGPR with broader jurisdiction, reactions to the latest evidence on the use of taxpayer money had many challenging the integrity of government employees.

Kevin Haggerty
Latest posts by Kevin Haggerty (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles