Here’s how it could shape U.S. policy

Former Apollo executive and longtime New Yorker Gregory Beard says he wouldn’t have left the private sector for just any job. But opportunity came knocking in the form of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who tapped Beard to run the Office of Energy Dominance Financing.

Previously known as the Loan Programs Office and part of the Energy Department, the EDF is the largest energy lender in the world, with some $289 billion in loan authority currently.

Beard first joined the EDF as a senior advisor in April 2025 from bitcoin miner Stronghold Digital Mining, before officially taking over as director on Jan. 29.

“If I didn’t feel passionately about Secretary Wright’s message and why the president chose him, I’d still be in the private sector,” Beard said in an exclusive conversation with CNBC.

Beard has only been at the helm for a few weeks, but he has big plans for the agency, including dispensing capital at a record rate. And at a time when the energy complex is seeing a generational shift and natural resources increasingly drive geopolitics, the EDF can be a key tool in shaping the future of energy in the U.S.

Beard says the first order of business was to reexamine the loans granted during the Biden administration, the majority of which were approved in the months between Election Day 2024 and the inauguration. The result of the “turnaround job,” as he called it, impacted more than 80% of the Biden-era portfolio, or about $83.6 billion worth of loans, according to the Department of Energy. Most were focused on emissions-reducing projects.

The review process included making sure projects that stayed in the portfolio align with the Trump administration’s energy goals, Beard said. All told, roughly $30 billion in conditional loan commitments were either canceled or withdrawn by the applicant, with about $53 billion worth of loans restructured, the DOE said.

The goal was to protect taxpayers, and to focus on affordability and reliability, Beard said. “This is not a reversal of policies — it’s a protection of dollars,” he said.

The EDF dates back to 2005. The agency has acted as a bridge of sorts for U.S. companies that might struggle to secure financing via traditional capital markets due to perceived risks. In theory, the rigorous process to secure an EDF loan could be seen as a stamp of approval from the government, opening up additional funding to help nascent companies and technologies get off the ground. Over its more than 20 years there have been hits — including a 2010 loan to Tesla — and misses, most notably backing solar manufacturer Solyndra, which ultimately went bankrupt.

Under President Joe Biden and his climate-focused administration, the agency was supercharged, acting as a green bank of…