Biden Energy Official Who Gave $1.6 Billion To Company He Invested In Says He Has No Regrets

A Biden administration official who approved a $1.6 billion loan to a company he invested in recently said he does not regret his decision.

Jigar Shah, former President Joe Biden’s head of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, recently told Semafor that he wouldn’t change “a single thing” about his actions in office. A reporter for the outlet asked Shah if he would have done anything differently at the Loan Programs Office (LPO) at the Department of Education, and Shah said no.

“Not a single thing,” Shah said. “To take an office that was shut down by the Obama administration after Solyndra and give it hope again, that just takes the amount of time that it takes.”

Just days before President Donald Trump retook office, Shah finalized a $1.6 billion federal loan to a green energy company in which he was invested, The Washington Free Beacon reported. Shah made the $100 million investment in Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel developer, through his green financial firm Generate Capital – just before he joined the Biden administration in 2021. Just one month after Shah joined the administration, Plug Power applied for a federal loan from his office.

Republicans had raised concerns about Shah’s ties to the company, but those concerns went nowhere and Shah joined the Biden administration. Shah’s finalization of a loan to Plug Power came just weeks after the Department of Energy’s own inspector general asked him to halt all loans from his office due to a “significant risk of fraud” and conflict-of-interest concerns within the program. Shah ignored the warning and provided billions to green energy companies in the final weeks of the Biden administration, the Free Beacon reported.

During the four years of the Biden administration, the LPO pumped out $400 billion to green energy companies, according to the Free Beacon.

Shah was directly involved in the Plug Power loan process, the Free Beacon found during a public records request, even holding a meeting with the company’s CEO in May 2021. Three days after that meeting, staff in Shah’s office held another meeting focused on Plug Power.

In 2023, Plug Power warned investors it may run out of money within a year, and Morgan Stanley downgraded the company’s stock due to “significant risk around PLUG’s business model.”

This didn’t stop Shah from handing the company another $1.6 billion in the closing days of the Biden administration.