Biden Spends on ‘Last-Minute Buying Spree’ on IRA and CHIPS to Get DOGE Check

Vivek Ramaswamy, co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency and former US presidential candidate, is not yet ready to give up his hand when it comes to where the new agency he will lead with Elon Musk under President-elect Trump DOGE, will seek spending cuts.

One immediate area of ​​focus where he isn’t holding back, however, is what he described as the Biden administration’s “last-minute spending spree” on major policies like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act.

As an example, Ramaswamy cited a recent $6.6 billion loan to an electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive.

“Current last-minute IRA, CHIPS Act and countless other federal spending sprees approved under Biden, when suddenly spending goes up and dollars go out,” Ramaswamy said Wednesday at the CNBC CFO Council Summit in Washington, D.C. “In some cases not justifying it,” he said.

“The $6.6 billion loan to Rivian … I don’t think it will be repaid,” he said.

Ramaswamy described Biden’s approvals in recent days as potentially tantamount to a “fiduciary breach.”

In addition to the Rivian loan, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Monday that it plans to loan up to $7.54 billion to a joint venture between Chrysler parent company Stellantis and Samsung SDI to build two lithium plants -ion ​​batteries for electric vehicles in Indiana.

“This is fair game for review,” Ramaswamy said. He likened it to a company firing a CEO and a CFO who, in their final days, authorize spending based on an agreement but have not yet paid out the money. “The board would look into it,” he said.

It is not clear whether there will be enough time to complete some of the deals announced by the Biden administration.

“These deserve special scrutiny,” Ramaswamy said. “Everything that happens in this eleventh hour, the midnight hour. …every eleventh hour made in response to the election deserves special scrutiny, and if it was done by the executive, it can be reversed by the executive.”

Rivian could not immediately be reached for comment.

Electric vehicles were the target of several new Republican powerbrokers who spoke at the CNBC CFO Council Summit. New Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, a former car dealer who wants to be a “car czar” for Trump, said the electric vehicle tax credits are “catastrophically stupid.”

Ramaswamy said “time is of the essence” for DOGE as it is designed to be automatically deleted as an agency within 18 months, on July 4, 2026. And he said DOGE will prioritize what is most important and use “early successes” to build on that and then move forward in a “logical, measured but aggressive” manner to target government waste and fraud.

But unlike Rivian, Ramaswamy said: “Three weeks before January 20, when we officially start, I resist the idea of ​​cherry-picking.”