In his final hours before the incoming Trump Administration takes over and reverses the current administration’s policies, outgoing President Joe Biden signed off on a multi-billion-dollar loan to support the left’s push for widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
The lame-duck Biden Administration announced this week that the U.S. Department of Energy would loan $6.6 billion to electric vehicle company Rivian Automotive to construct “Project Horizon,” a factory in Georgia. The project had been paused as the startup struggled to stabilize its operations.
As of September, Rivian’s debt had reached $5.46 billion, doubling from the previous year. The company initially halted factory construction to reduce expenses and accelerate production. However, it remains uncertain whether the loan will be finalized before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The incoming administration is expected to reduce environmental regulations and repeal Biden’s $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit and the $4,000 credit for used EVs. If Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris had won the election, she likely would have expanded Biden’s initiatives, including $7.5 billion in federal grants to build hundreds of thousands of EV chargers by 2030. Trump, however, has made clear his intention to roll back much of that spending.
Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (R-OH), who will lead Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Elon Musk, criticized the Biden Administration’s move as a “cheap political shot.”
“One ‘justification’ is the 7,500 jobs it creates, but that implies a cost of $880k per job, which is insane,” Ramaswamy said. “This smells more like a political shot across the bow at Elon Musk and Tesla.”
DOGE officials have stated their goal is to cut federal spending by about $2 trillion and “eliminate excessive regulations.” The Biden Administration is also expected to expedite funding for infrastructure projects and the U.S. microchip industry before Trump takes office, including nearly $8 billion in federal grants to Intel under the IRA and CHIPS Act.
Ramaswamy warned that DOGE would review “every one of these 11th-hour gambits & recommend that Inspectors General scrutinize these last-minute contracts.”
“Political appointees who go on to work for beneficiaries of this midnight spending spree should be exposed unsparingly,” he wrote in a post on X.
