Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims that during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than $312 million in loans were given to children.
The announcement was made alongside news of the latest wave of contract terminations on Saturday. The situation comes as DOGE continues to work on rooting out alleged waste, fraud, and corruption within the federal government.
Millions Worth of Loans to Children
The agency said that it was able to identify that the Small Business Administration (SBA) granted almost 5,600 loans worth over $312 million to borrowers whose only listed owner was at most 11 years old at the time the loan was given.
It was also revealed that the loans in question were issued in 2020 and 2021, when the world was struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. DOGE said it was not yet clear what the loans were used for.
In a statement, the agency said that while it was possible to have business arrangements where the loans were legal, that was unlikely for the thousands of loans that were given away at the time, according to Fox News.
DOGE added that the SBA is working to resolve the issue by this week. When Musk's agency made the announcement, it shared a post on X revealing that the SBA also issued roughly 3,100 loans worth about $333 million to borrowers older than 115.
The Social Security database still marked the borrowers as alive for those loans. One example was a 157-year-old individual who was given $36,000 in loans. The SBA loans apparently included Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) loans.
Discrepancies in the Data
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump addressed Congress, where he bashed times when he claimed millions of people over the age of 100 were still listed on the Social Security database. One of these individuals was said to have been 360 years old, Yahoo News reported.
DOGE has been investigating federal agency data since the start of Trump's second presidency. In the process, it has been criticized and sued. Some of the legal challenges question the agency's legality and Musk's role in the efforts.
A group of labor unions asked a federal court in Maryland on March. 7, 2025, for an emergency order to prevent DOGE from accessing the Social Security data of millions of Americans. The motion was led by the legal services group Democracy Forward, as per NTD.
