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SBA's Million Dollar Pitch Competition

October 20, 2026 · The White House · 1:08:21

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

The White House broadcast the Small Business Administration’s Million Dollar Pitch Competition, a televised finale in which five small-business finalists pitched before a panel of judges — Nicki Minaj, Grant Cardone, and Joe Gebbia — for a share of a $1 million cash prize pool funded by Clover Network, Inc., according to the SBA. Host Dean Cain introduced SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler as “the cabinet level voice fighting for them every single day,” and Loeffler explained why the SBA brought the competition to prime time: “I have the blessing of being able to travel this country constantly, meeting with small businesses, literally from Maine to Alaska, and I see how consequential small businesses are. They have truly built America for the last 250 years.”

Loeffler then took the five finalists to the White House to meet President Donald Trump, introducing them as “our five finalists, the job creators, the manufacturers who are rebuilding Made in America.” The President congratulated the finalists and, asked for pitch advice, said: “I have a feeling that they know better than all of us what to do. And if they don’t, they wouldn’t be here.” He recalled his own years hosting The Apprentice: “I did this for 12 years on The Apprentice.” Back on stage, the judges awarded the prizes from Clover’s pool — $400,000 to the winning pitch, from the Plas-Tech Tooling team, and $250,000 to the runner-up, Winton Machine Company — with the remaining finalists also taking home awards, per the broadcast. The SBA identified the five finalist businesses as Compotech, Plas-Tech Tooling, Red River, VetPowered, and Winton Machine Company.

Why it matters

The competition is the SBA’s signature Freedom 250 event under Administrator Loeffler — the agency’s small-business promotion staged as a national broadcast rather than a press release. It puts Loeffler, the cabinet-level official who runs the SBA’s lending and Main Street programs, in the presenter role for the administration’s small-business record, and it is the SBA event the President personally appeared in.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: the SBA’s first Million Dollar Pitch Competition finale, with a $1 million prize pool funded by Clover Network, Inc. (not taxpayer funds, per the SBA) and five manufacturing-focused finalists — as announced by the SBA and shown in the White House broadcast, to be checked against the SBA’s own post-event reporting.

Sources: The White House, “SBA’s Million Dollar Pitch Competition,” October 20, 2026 (official upload, embedded above); U.S. Small Business Administration, “SBA’s Million Dollar Pitch Competition Now Streaming on YouTube and Prime Video,” October 20, 2026. All figures and characterizations as stated in the broadcast and the SBA release.