Billionaire Kanye West’s Yeezy Get A Multimillion-Dollar PPP loan

Not long after Kanye West made known his interest in the forthcoming presidential election, documents revealed that his multimillion-dollar company Yeezy received more than $2 million through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). According to Forbes, Kanye West owned more than 100% of the company and this was what catapulted him to the billionaire group. 

The PPP was created as a major part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act signed into law by Trump towards the end of March. Last week Saturday, exactly three days after the Act expired, a bill to extend the PPP for another five weeks was signed. 

According to a report disclosed by the U.S Treasury Small Business Administration on Monday, Yeezy received between $2 million and $5 million through PPP and claimed to have saved 106 jobs. When Democrats and media organizations demanded transparency on this, the U.S Treasury Fund released some of the names of people who have been given a loan of $150,000 and above. The SBA said loans that are above $150,000 are nearly three-fourths of the total loan approved. However, it stated that 87% of companies receive loans less than this amount and the average loan is $107,000.

Aside from the loan rate, the PPP revealed that it had received different complaints about banks prioritizing big companies, especially one that shares some close ties with the Trump administration. Most of these companies only start returning the money after facing a backlash. 

Other companies aside from Kanye West’s Yeezy that shares a close tie with the Trump administration and got a similar rate of cash include Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in New Jersey, named after the son-in-law of Trump and advisor Jared Kushner’s grandfather, and the transportation secretary Elaine Chao’s family business  Foremost Maritime.

Although Steven Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary revealed last month that the names of the beneficiary of the act would not be disclosed, it is surprising that the SBA and Treasury later said that it will disclose the names of companies that took more than $150,000 loan