This paper takes A share listed SOEs from 2011 to 2017 as the research sample, and analyzes the relationship between managerial power, government audit, and top executives’ corruption in SOEs. The result shows that: the degree of corruption in SOEs is more serious in firms with greater managerial power, and the implementation of government audit can significantly reduce the level of corruption in SOEs. Furthermore, government audit has significant negative regulatory effect for the positive correlation between management power and corruption. These findings still hold in a series of robust tests. This paper reveals a channel mechanism on how government audit helps curb management corruption in SOEs, and has certain implications for the improvement of anti corruption mechanism and for the government audit to play a more vital role in strengthening the reforms in SOEs.