The findings show the leaders of the world’s largest tech companies had significant access to Raimondo after she was confirmed in 2021 to lead the department, which oversees issues crucial to the industry around U.S. innovation and digital trade.
According to our review, Raimondo met or held calls at least eight times with Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger, seven times with Apple CEO Tim Cook, four times with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, three times with Microsoft President Brad Smith and twice with Google CEO Sundar Pichai. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Raimondo’s known meetings with Gelsinger and Cook outnumber sessions with almost every U.S. lawmaker, except for a few including Senate Commerce Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who she met with at least eight times each.
They exceed the number of recorded sit-downs or calls with several prominent congressional leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the heads of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Liberal advocacy groups have criticized Raimondo over her repeated meetings with Silicon Valley leaders, accusing her of being too cozy with major corporations.
While calendars from Raimondo’s first seven months in office were previously reported, the recent disclosure of three additional months offers the most detailed look yet into her interactions with top tech executives in her first calendar year as Commerce secretary. The department publicly released them after receiving multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.
The calendars do not offer a full accounting of Raimondo’s official conversations in 2021. Large segments of the daily itineraries were redacted and some records did not include full lists of attendees, meaning more interactions with CEOs or policymakers may not have been released.
Raimondo also routinely held public events with both officials and business leaders. But the records offer a rare glimpse into the Cabinet member’s private interactions with both groups.
Commerce spokesman Charlie Andrews said in a statement Monday that “Secretary Raimondo’s job is to engage with a broad spectrum of industry, labor, members of Congress and other stakeholders to advance President Biden’s priorities.”
Andrews added that “Secretary Raimondo is proud of her work to get the business community on board with key components of the President’s agenda,” including Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal and legislation to boost funding for chip manufacturing in the United States. Conversations with Apple’s Cook, Andrews said, “were instrumental in helping secure additional commitments for domestic production from Apple.”
While the calendars reveal little about the scope of Raimondo’s meetings, many occurred as the secretary and industry leaders ramped up calls for federal semiconductor subsidies.
Intel spokeswoman Lisa Malloy said in a statement that the company meets “regularly with officials at all levels of government to discuss issues of importance to our industry, our business, our suppliers, and our customers.” Apple spokespeople did not return a request for comment.
Microsoft declined to comment. Amazon spokeswoman Allison Leader referred an inquiry to a past statement saying Jassy “meets with policymakers on both sides of the aisle.” Google spokesman José Castañeda said in a statement that the company “regularly” engages with U.S. officials, including on issues that “support economic growth, such as supply chains, digital skilling and cybersecurity.”
Some Democrats contend Raimondo’s private talks with tech leaders are reflected in her policies, including in her negotiations with foreign leaders around trade pacts and local rules targeting U.S. tech firms.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called the meetings “questionable” and said that the “American people deserve a full accounting.”
“Secretary Raimondo needs to look out for the interests of working people, not CEOs,” she told The Technology 202.
Warren previously criticized Raimondo for expressing concern that European regulations could disproportionately affect U.S. tech giants. Commerce spokesperson Robyn Patterson pushed back at the time, saying that Raimondo “has been clear in her support of the administration’s strong pro-competition policies.”
Lori Wallach, who works on digital trade for the American Economic Liberties Project advocacy group, said it isn’t “alarming” for a Commerce secretary to meet with business leaders. But she said the frequency of the sessions relative to those with some policymakers is and could amount to “undue input” from industry.
Raimondo’s daily calendars show a broad mix of meetings with not just tech executives and federal legislators but also state government officials, union chiefs and leaders in other major areas of commerce, including in the banking and defense sectors.
And they reveal the Commerce chief huddled with members of Congress over 150 times, including meetings with the Congressional Progressive Caucus and individual sessions with political leaders from the left flank of the Democratic caucus, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
But few of them had as much direct contact with Raimondo as the leaders of some of the largest tech companies, particularly Intel and Apple.
Cruz: Kids privacy efforts more likely to move this Congress
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said on Monday that data privacy legislation focusing on boosting safeguards for children online is more likely to advance this Congress, and that lawmakers “may well be wise” to focus their efforts there while they settle disputes over a comprehensive bill.
Cruz’s remarks are some of his most expansive on the issue since taking over his influential perch as the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, which has primary jurisdiction over data privacy legislation and which last year advanced a kids privacy bill.
“I do think the most likely area to see privacy legislation move forward in this Congress concerns protecting kids,” Cruz said during a call with reporters. “That’s the easiest place to get bipartisan agreement, but further negotiations are still ongoing.”
Cruz delivered the remarks in a news conference announcing an investigation into allegations of “censorship” by social media platforms and “collusion” with the federal government. While discussing data privacy efforts, Cruz added, “What I will say is that in any and all discussions on Big Tech, my focus will be very directly on the censorship issue, on protecting free speech.”
FCC nominee says telecom industry seeking to block her confirmation
Gigi Sohn, President Biden’s long-stalled nominee for the Federal Communications Commission, will testify at a hearing Tuesday that industry groups are seeking to thwart her nomination to prevent tougher oversight of the sector, Reuters’s David Shepardson reports.
“I believe deeply that regulated entities should not choose their regulator. Unfortunately, that is the exact intent of the past 15 months of false and misleading attacks on my record and my character,” Sohn said in written testimony seen by Reuters.
Sohn’s nomination, which would give Democrats a majority on the commission, has been bogged down for over a year amid pushback from Republicans and conservative groups who have accused her of holding radical political views.
Senators set to revive push for kids online safety, Section 230 bills
Senate lawmakers will renew calls for Congress to pass their children’s safety standards at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, which is set to feature testimony from kids safety advocates, among other witnesses.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), the lead Republican sponsor of the Kids Online Safety Act, will argue that the United States faces an “emergency” when it comes to children’s well-being and the role digital platforms play in it. The measure would create a “duty of care” for services likely to be accessed by kids.
“Our kids are literally dying from things they access online, from fentanyl to sex trafficking to suicide kits,” Blackburn is slated to say, according to prepared remarks shared with The Technology 202. “It’s not too late to save the children and teens who are suffering right now because Big Tech refuses to protect them.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who is co-leading that bill, will also urge passage of the Earn It Act, a separate bill seeking to weaken the liability shield that protects digital platforms from lawsuits over user content, according to his prepared remarks. Both bills have faced pushback from industry groups and some civil liberties advocates, who argue they could have unintended consequences and lead to more harm for children, rather than less.
AI porn is easy to make now. For women, that’s a nightmare. (Tatum Hunter)
- The Senate Commerce Committee holds a nomination hearing for Gigi Sohn, nominee for the Federal Communications Commission, on Tuesday at 11 a.m.
- The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on “Protecting Our Children Online” on Tuesday at 11 a.m.
- The FCC holds an open commission meeting Thursday at 10:30 a.m.
- The Federal Trade Commission’s Alvaro Bedoya delivers the keynote address at a Future of Privacy Forum event Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
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