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Dan Gilbert

Executive

EIDL
Type
Person
Role
Executive
Programs
EIDL
Updated

The profile

Founder and chairman of Rocket Companies. Rocket Loans was RER Solutions' subcontractor on SBA's COVID-EIDL loan-recommendation contract, retaining about $232.9 million per the House report (report cited), and Rockbridge-owned Rapid Finance built the program's decisioning engine.

Identity and role

Dan Gilbert is the founder and Chairman of Rocket Companies, Inc. (NYSE: RKT), the Detroit-based home-lending and fintech group that began as Quicken Loans and Rock Financial. He is the majority owner of Rocket and the founder of Rock Ventures, and he controls a "Rock family of companies" that includes the lender Rocket Loans, the small-business lender Rapid Finance (via Rockbridge Growth Equity), Bedrock real estate in Detroit, and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Wikipedia (secondary) cites Forbes for his net worth.

Biography

Wikipedia (secondary; we have a copy) records that Gilbert started Rock Financial in 1985 with his brother Gary, that Intuit bought the company in 1999 and renamed it Quicken Loans, with Gilbert leading a later buyback, and that Quicken Loans went public as Rocket Companies in 2020 with Gilbert as controlling shareholder.

Outside mortgages, Gilbert owns the Cleveland Cavaliers and built Bedrock into a major downtown Detroit property owner (Wikipedia, secondary).

The company and its EIDL role

Two companies he controls sat inside the COVID-EIDL loan-recommendation stack.

The first is Rocket Loans (RockLoans Marketplace LLC). When SBA awarded the pre-pandemic disaster loan-recommendation contract to Errin Green's RER Solutions in 2018, RER teamed with Rocket as its larger-firm partner. The House report notes SBA expected any small-business contractor on this work to need a bigger partner, and RER's was a company tied to Rocket Companies and Quicken Loans.1 When COVID hit, Rocket continued to handle funding and disbursement of approved EIDL loans through SBA's E-Tran system. The House Select Subcommittee's June 2022 report states that Rocket kept the large majority of what SBA paid RER.1

The second is Rapid Financial Services (RapidAdvance / Rapid Finance), run by Will Tumulty, the Bethesda small-business lender that Gilbert's Rockbridge Growth Equity, co-founded with Brian Hermelin and Kevin Prokop, acquired in September 2013 (PR Newswire).2 Rapid built the automated decisioning engine at the core of COVID-EIDL (see the Tumulty profile). The Subcommittee's release states Rapid received about $148.0 million.1 Clyburn and Velázquez's February 2021 document demand to Rapid noted that Rocket and Rapid together were expected to receive more than $360 million.3

The structure, per the Subcommittee and OIG records: a small prime (RER) on top, and beneath it two Gilbert-controlled companies — one disbursing the loans, one deciding them.

Their own relief

No PPP or EIDL self-loan attributable to Dan Gilbert personally has been identified. The Rock entities' role in the relief programs was as paid federal contractors (Rocket Loans, Rapid), not as relief recipients.

No criminal charge, civil fraud case, or enforcement action has been identified against Dan Gilbert, Rocket Loans, or Rapid Finance in connection with the COVID-EIDL contract. The contractors were not charged. The findings in the record are the SBA Inspector General's and the Subcommittee's, and they concern SBA's procurement and oversight, not crimes by the Rock companies.

One OIG finding touches the Gilbert structure directly: SBA OIG Report 22-10 found that SBA had not evaluated whether RER's reliance on Rocket created an affiliation problem under the ostensible-subcontractor rule before award.4 That is a finding about SBA's diligence, not a determination that the Rock companies did anything unlawful.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

Gilbert remains Chairman and controlling shareholder of Rocket Companies (Wikipedia, secondary); Rocket's 2025 acquisitions of Redfin and Mr. Cooper are cited to company releases; we do not have copies. Rapid Finance remains in the Rock family under Rockbridge ownership.

Sources held in this archive

Original source documents and archived captures

Sources

Notes

  1. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Idle on EIDL Fraud (June 14, 2022). ↩
  2. PR Newswire, "Detroit-based Rockbridge Growth Equity Acquires RapidAdvance" (Sept. 2013). ↩
  3. Clyburn and Velázquez letter to Rapid Finance (Feb. 11, 2021). ↩
  4. SBA Office of Inspector General, Report 22-10 (Apr. 14, 2022). ↩
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