Solyndra Bankruptcy: Solar Panel Company Won't Pay Back Most Of Its $527 Million Government Loan

Sorry, Taxpayers, Solyndra's Not Paying Back Most Of Its Government Loan

Solyndra's not going to pay back the better part of its loans, which is bad news for its investors -- better known as U.S. taxpayers.

Solyndra, the solar panel company that famously filed for bankruptcy last September, will only be paying back about $24 million of the $527 million loaned to it by the U.S. government, according to Dow Jones reports. The company will also repay at least half of a $70 million investment from private equity firms, but much of a separate $1 billion investment from the private equity industry won't be coming back.

The Dow Jones report is based on a Chapter 11 reorganization plan that Solyndra filed in a bankruptcy court in Delaware last Friday.

That Solyndra won't be paying back the lion's share of its government loan isn't exactly surprising -- the possibility has been discussed for months -- but it's certainly not good P.R. for the Obama administration, which has already taken heat over its relationship with the company.

Solyndra proved to be a major black eye for Obama last year, when the company went bankrupt following a sizable infusion of taxpayer and private-investor cash. That failure was especially embarrassing for the Obama team because the president had been a vocal supporter of the company in the early days of his administration -- in fact, Solyndra was the first company to receive a federal loan under the stimulus program in 2009.

More than a thousand people lost their jobs when Solyndra went bankrupt, another blow for a sitting president overseeing a sustained unemployment crisis.

Billionaire George Kaiser, one of Solyndra's backers, was heavily involved in soliciting donations for Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Goldman Sachs, a company that's not exactly popular with Main Street, also served as Solyndra's financial adviser.

Now, as the 2012 presidential race heats up, Republicans have continued to emphasize the ties between Solyndra and the Obama White House, in effort to paint the president as a Washington insider who favors his close associates with cushy business deals.

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