What we know about claims DOGE found $312M in business loans to children

On March 8, 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency announced (archived) on X that, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the Small Business Administration — an agency describing its mission on its website as helping “small business owners and entrepreneurs pursue the American dream” — listed a child 11 or younger as the sole owner of 5,593 loans totaling $312 million. The post received more than 22.4 million views.

Elon Musk, the public face of DOGE, reposted (archived) the announcement on March 9 with a raised-eyebrow emoji, receiving 19 million views.

One of several readers emailing Snopes about the rumor asked, “Did the SBA issue $300 million in loans to children as DOGE is reporting, or is there a logical explanation?”

As of March 11, DOGE had not yet provided any additional information or evidence via its official @DOGE or @DOGE_SBA accounts on X, or on DOGE.gov, that would enable an independent investigation of its claims. The X post said only that DOGE and the SBA would work together to “solve this problem” during the week of March 9-15.

The White House and SBA have not responded to emailed requests for verifiable information regarding the claims, nor did @DOGE or @DOGE_SBA respond via direct messages on X.

Isabel Casillas Guzman, the former SBA administrator serving under former President Joe Biden, also did not reply to a request for comment via X or via an acquaintance associated with her new role at Stanford University. Online searches failed to locate an active contact method for Jovita Carranza, who preceded Guzman in the SBA lead role from January 2020 through the end of Trump’s first term on Jan. 20, 2021.

Unpacking DOGE’s claims

The DOGE post (archived) read, “In 2020-2021, SBA granted 5,593 loans for $312M to borrowers whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger at the time of the loan. 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 with the incorrect name. @DOGE and @SBAgov are working together to solve this problem this week.” The time period of 2020 and 2021 covered the end of Trump’s first term and the beginning of Biden’s term.

The DOGE post claimed all of the purported 5,593 loans displayed a Social Security number “with the incorrect name.” That part of the post potentially indicated an error not in the delivery of the loans but rather in the recordkeeping of its owner’s information, for example the possibility of a mistyped, omitted or extra digit in the Social Security number.

Searches of DuckDuckGo, Google and other services for published reporting about the rumor primarily displayed articles from conservative-leaning websites including Fox News and Breitbart, as well as a post on the right-leaning r/Conservative subreddit on Reddit. The articles from Fox News and Breitbart simply repeated the statements from the DOGE post, under headlines beginning with the words “DOGE says,” and making no mention of whether or not their journalists attempted to verify the claims or make contact with any involved agencies or officials.

The top-voted comment in the r/Conservative Reddit post displayed a user’s frustration with a lack of verifiable proof, reading, “I’m getting tired of all the DOGE found this and then shows no proof and then no one is brought in for questioning no charges no nothing. Like what is going on?” Several users commenting under a Breitbart Facebook post also requested evidence, for example two people remarking, “Proof and details please,” and, “I would love to see some actual proof from DOGE.”

We will update this article should DOGE or any other officials respond to requests for comment, or if they provide any evidence or publish statements.

For further reading, previous investigations of DOGE-related rumors looked at claims positing former President Barack Obama created DOGE and Trump simply renamed the agency, and a different matter claiming most of the Internal Revenue Service agents fired by DOGE existed as forensic auditors trained to investigate corporations and billionaires.