WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senior officials in the Biden administration had undisclosed ties to major corporations, including tech giants Microsoft Corp, Alphabet’s Google and Facebook Inc, financial disclosures for the White House program.
According to the Office of Government Ethics archives, national security adviser Jake Sullivan served on a Microsoft advisory board from 2017 to May last year. He received $ 45,000 last year, according to his release, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.
Sullivan, who oversees an inter-agency response to the January cyber attack on Microsoft’s Exchange email software, holds between $ 50,000 and $ 100,000 in shares of Microsoft and Alphabet and owns between $ 15,000 and $ 50,000 in shares Facebook, shows the disclosure.
The White House said in a statement on Sunday that officials like Sullivan are “experienced government leaders, whose past experience in the private sector is part of a broad and diverse set of skills they bring to government service”.
A White House official said that Sullivan is not participating in decisions that directly affect Microsoft, has had no contact with the company and is consulting with NSC lawyers to remain in compliance with ethical requirements.
The official said Sullivan is scrapping all of his actions.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said that “individuals from across the political spectrum offer ideas and advice on a variety of national policy issues” to the company.
Press secretary Jen Psaki received at least $ 5,000 as a communications consultant for Lyft Inc. The White House official said the consultancy involved writing a plan and lasted about six months.
The disclosures were first reported by the Associated Press.
Key Trump administration officials had ties to Wall Street, the oil and gas industry and the real estate industry.
Reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Daniel Wallis