White House steered a record $620M Pentagon loan to a rare-earth firm tied to Donald Trump Jr.

In November 2025 the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital announced a $620 million loan — its largest to date — to Vulcan Elements, a two-year-old North Carolina startup making rare-earth magnets, part of a federal push to reduce U.S. dependence on Chinese critical-mineral supply chains. A ProPublica investigation published May 28, 2026 found that the loan request was initiated by White House senior counselor Peter Navarro, a friend of Donald Trump Jr.'s. Of the dozens of companies the office was weighing at the time, Vulcan's was the only deal set in motion by a top aide to the president.

Pentagon staff told ProPublica that the normal vetting process, which typically runs many months, was compressed to a matter of weeks because the deal was treated as a White House priority — one staffer recalling, "The call came from the White House: We have to get this done." Roughly three months before the deal was announced, Donald Trump Jr.'s venture-capital firm had taken an undisclosed-size stake in Vulcan; estimates of the company's valuation rose about tenfold after the loan was announced. ProPublica characterized the episode as the first time the award of a federal-agency contract has been directly tied to White House intervention.

Trump Jr., the Pentagon, and Vulcan's founder all denied that Trump Jr. played any role in securing the loan or received favoritism. Following the reporting, members of Congress sent letters demanding answers about how the loan was approved. The event date reflects the November 2025 announcement of the loan; the White House's role in steering it was surfaced by ProPublica's May 2026 reporting.