What we know about claims Biden’s Department of Energy handed out $93B in loans in its final months

In late May 2025, claims (archived) circulated online that the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden gave out $93 billion in loans to businesses during its last 76 days. 

One X user wrote: 

This will make your blood boil.

Yesterday the Dept of Energy Secretary Chris Wright testified that in the 76-day period between the day Trump was elected and the day Biden left office, Biden’s Dept of Energy handed out $93 BILLION in taxpayer dollars in the form of loans—including to businesses and individuals who had no clear business plan or concept.

For the record, this $93 billion—handed out in a mere 76 days—is over twice as much as the Dept of energy has handed out in the PREVIOUS FIFTEEN YEARS.

Absolutely appalling.

The claim also appeared on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived), Reddit (archived) and TikTok (archived). Snopes users searched our site for information about the claim.

The claim circulated after U.S. Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright testified (archived) at the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 21, 2025. However, we found no evidence the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) — which is the office claims are referring to — approved loans worth exactly $93 billion between Nov. 5, 2024 and Jan. 20, 2025. The office awards or guarantees loans to companies to advance clean energy, advanced transportation and Tribal energy projects in the United States.

According to the LPO’s public press releases, the office announced loan guarantees or conditional commitments worth around $68 billion during this period. According to usaspending.gov, an open data source of federal spending information, new loans issued by the LPO during that period totaled around $77 billion. 

On Jan. 17, 2025, the LPO said in its 2024 year-in-review that it had announced “53 deals totaling approximately $107.57 billion” during the entire Biden-Harris administration from January 2021 to January 2025. Though none of these figures corresponded exactly to Wright’s claim, according to usaspending.gov, the LPO awarded 27 of the 53 loans on or after Nov. 5, 2024, indicating a flurry of activity in the administration’s final months.

We reached out to the Department of Energy to ask how it evidenced Wright’s statement. We also reached out to Biden administration Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Jigar Shah, who was at the time the head of the LPO, to ask if they could confirm the figure. We await replies to our queries.

Wright first made the claim during an interview (archived) with Blaze Media’s Glenn Beck. Wright has since repeated the claim in an appearance on Fox Business (archived) and while testifying at the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 21, 2025.

Wright said during the May 21 hearing while speaking about the LPO (time code 37:43, our emphasis):

Christopher Wright: The Loan Programs Office is a key tool. We do need to make sure we have funding available in the Loan Programs Office because, used judiciously, it’s a way to leverage private capital to make things happen fast. If your equity investors behind that debt are the six hyperscalers in the United States, they’re great credit, the American taxpayers are going to be paid back. Alternatively, in the last administration — the Loan Programs Office in its 15-year history lent $43 billion —

Sen. Katie Britt: Wow.

CW: — In the 76 days since Election Day to Inauguration Day of the new President, the previous administration lent or committed $93 billion — two and a half times the 15-year total —

KB: You’re kidding, tell me, tell me that time frame again?

CW: — 76 days from Election Day when the B — Biden lost the presidential election to President Trump’s inauguration, in 76 days —

KB: That is absolute insanity.

CW: — they lent or committed $93 billion. So, there is a reason I’m moving slow and I’m doing evaluations of projects, yes, there’s a very big reason.

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana repeated the claim to Wright later in that same hearing (starting around time code 1:38:25).

Breaking down the numbers

While we could not document loan or commitment announcements from the LPO between Nov. 5, 2024 and Jan. 20, 2025 totaling exactly $93 billion, our investigation did find that the office announced a flurry of new activity during this period. 

During that period the office announced loan guarantees or conditional commitments to 23 new companies totaling $68,836,640,000, according to the LPO’s own press releases.

The largest was a $15 billion loan guarantee to Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E)’s Project Polaris, a portfolio of projects to expand hydropower in the company’s service area. A loan guarantee is a promise by a third party (not the borrower or lender) to repay a loan if the borrower is not able.

According to usaspending.gov, between Nov. 5, 2024, and Jan. 20, 2025, the Department of Energy awarded 27 loans with a combined face value (the amount either lent directly or guaranteed) of $77,150,255,215. This number was likely higher because the LPO might not have publicly announced all the loans or guarantees it made on its website.

Though the higher loan total from USAspending.gov was in the ballpark of Wright’s $93 billion — about $16 billion short — neither figure matched exactly. We await a reply from the LPO about the discrepancy between publicly available data and Wright’s statement.

According to the Biden-era LPO itself, the office announced “53 deals totaling approximately $107.57 billion” during the Biden-Harris administration. According to usaspending.gov, the office made 27 of these commitments in its last three months. Therefore, while it was not possible to exactly match Wright’s $93 billion figure, data shows the Biden administration did commit to around half the loans or guarantees made through the LPO in its last three months. 

Then-Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm declared the office “open for business” in 2021, after it, according to reports citing Granholm, had been dormant during the first Trump administration.

Outlets like Politico, Bloomberg and the Financial Times reported in late 2024 that companies were rushing to finalize loan deals with the LPO amid uncertainty about what then President-elect Donald Trump would do with the office once in power.

Wright’s $43 billion claim

Alongside his claim about $93 billion in loans given out in the final months of the Biden administration, Wright also claimed that this was “two and a half times the 15-year total” of $43 billion that the office had lent previously.

The LPO did likely lend or commit more than $43 billion during its last three months — as listed above, our estimates range up to around $77 billion during this period.

The office’s website said in May 2025 that by September 2024 the LPO had financed “a $43.9 billion portfolio of innovative clean energy projects and advanced technology vehicle manufacturing facilities across the United States.” This could be the figure Wright was referring to, though it would account for 19 years of the LPO’s lifetime, not 15, as Wright had said. President George W. Bush founded the office in 2005, so a 15-year lifetime would only count up to 2020.

It was unclear whether “financed” on the LPO’s website meant obligated or disbursed — and equally unclear whether Wright was referring to either or both of these terms when he said the LPO “lent” $43 billion. The LPO’s own annual portfolio status report for fiscal year 2023 (Page 10) showed that the office has consistently obligated more than it has disbursed. For example, in FY23, the office had obligated nearly $40 billion in its lifetime, but disbursed nearly $35 billion.

By the end of March 2025, the LPO said on its website it had disbursed $47.3 billion in loans.

Ultimately, while it was uncertain where Wright got his figures from, it was clear that the Biden administration finalized a large number of the loans and commitments it made through the LPO after Election Day in November 2024, and that the value of these loans and commitments likely exceeded the office’s previous lifetime cumulative total. 

It remains uncertain what will happen to the $46.95 billion worth of active conditional commitments the LPO made under the Biden-Harris administration as Wright and the Trump Department of Energy turn their attention to the office. Wright said during the May 21 Senate appropriations hearing (time code 01:40:26): “Senator, the one complication in there too is, mixed in there, are good companies doing good things honestly with credible plans.” Wright agreed that he was trying to “sort the wheat from the chaff.” 

“That’s our job and we’re doing it,” Wright said.

Sources