The Daily Beast
Marjorie Taylor Greene demonizes great technology. She and her husband have just sold up to $ 210,000 in technology stocks.
Drew Angerer / Getty When she was running for office, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) constantly harassed tech giants like Facebook for allegedly censoring and silencing pro-Trump Republicans, and vowed to fight what she called the “Cartel of the Silicon Valley “after being elected to Congress. During his first two months on Capitol Hill, Greene loudly increased anti-technology rhetoric. But shortly after her oath, she quietly moved on to unload significant equity stakes in the same companies she so vehemently denounced – earning a good sum in the process. According to their latest financial disclosure form, released on February 19, Greene and her husband sold $ 49,000 to $ 210,000 in shares on Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon on January 20. It is unclear exactly how much Greene and her husband, Perry, earned from each individual share of the company, since Congressional forms only broadly list ranges of value, but it may have been up to $ 65,000 each for the four technology stocks. Some shares were jointly owned by the couple and others were the exclusive property of her husband. Greene’s only other public financial disclosure form, filed in May 2020 when she was a candidate, lists joint or conjugal ownership of up to $ 65,000 in Apple shares, $ 30,000 in Facebook shares, $ 30,000 in Amazon shares and $ 15,000 in Google shares. The couple sold these holdings in January at a profit – the official form lists capital gains over $ 200 – but the exact number is unknown. The unhealthy history of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s hometown In light of the growing pressure from advocates of good government for lawmakers to sell everything. his shares in individual shares to avoid conflicts of interest, Greene’s sale might be welcome. But her financial disclosure report shows that she continues to invest in a number of other companies, from Fortune 500 giants like Goldman Sachs and Lockheed Martin to DraftKings sports gambling platform and active clothing brand Lululemon. There is also the sheer irony that Greene personally invested, and later profited from technology companies that she criticized for months as totalitarian tools of evil and social control. A spokesman for Greene did not respond to requests for comment about the sale of her shares and why she invested in companies in the first place. Like many of Trump’s staunch Republicans, Greene geared his policy around “culture cancellation” and Big Tech’s alleged censorship of prosecuting pro-Trump views. On his social media platforms, where he has hundreds of thousands of followers, Greene posts recent and fervent outrage on them almost daily. Facebook, shares whose shares Greene and her husband sold for up to $ 65,000 on Jan. 20, have been a constant target for her as a candidate and as a deputy. Last September, the platform removed a post from Greene in which she posed with a gun alongside images from the progressive “Squadron”, claiming that it incited violence. The Republican Party candidate claimed it was being canceled and now wears a mask in Congress with the message “CENSORED”. At various times in 2020, Greene called Facebook a racist for promoting a message to support black-owned businesses during the holiday season and frowned. as an anti-Semite for censoring far-right Islamophobic provocateur Laura Loomer. She also accused Facebook of allowing “ANTIFA” to carry out terrorist attacks and that the social media platform “canceled our children”. In October, when a Facebook spokesman tweeted that they would not link to a New York Post story about Hunter Biden, the Georgia Republican tweeted indignantly that “the Silicon Valley Cartel took the First Amendment and tore it up in pieces ”. “When I get to Congress,” declared Greene, “Big Tech will be held accountable!” Ironically, in June 2020, the Facebook investor publicly asked its many thousands of followers to use a competitor. “For those who are tired of being censored by Facebook,” she wrote, “I encourage you to open a Parler account today!” Greene has been less critical of the other tech companies she owned, but her opposite side is against the “Silicon Valley Cartel” leaves little room for nuance, especially due to the dominance of the industry by Google, Amazon and Apple. Marjorie Taylor Greene hangs anti-trans signal outside congresswoman’s office with Trans Daughter Greene’s technology stock sales could be interpreted as a signal that she wanted to sever any financial ties to companies she so strongly opposed. A spokesman for Greene did not answer questions about why she and her husband sold the shares when they did. However, just two weeks after the sale of its shares, Greene was calling on conservatives with similar ideas to take advantage of the free market system to develop alternatives for the technology companies she had previously funded. “Conservatives must come together to invest, develop and compete at Big Tech in order to protect our conservative values and speech from the endless screams of the police of thought. This would give people the ability to choose the online “community” they invest in, ”Greene tweeted on February 7.“ The Silicon Valley cartel controlling social media, freedom of expression and even aiming to bring down growing competition, like Parler, must be stopped. The way to prevent this is on the open market, while we can still… ”Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Subscribe now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. To know more.