When she was running for office, MP Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) constantly harassed tech giants like Facebook for allegedly censoring and silencing pro-Trump Republicans, and promised to fight what she called the “Silicon Valley Cartel “after being elected to Congress.
During his first two months on Capitol Hill, Greene noisily intensified anti-technology rhetoric. But, shortly after her oath, she quietly began to dispose of significant shareholdings in the same companies that she denounced so vehemently – getting 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, gained from each company’s stock, since Congressional forms only list broad ranges of value, but it may have cost up to $ 65,000 each for the four technology stocks. Some shares were jointly owned by the couple and others were held exclusively by the husband.
Greene’s only other public financial disclosure form, submitted 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.
In light of the growing drive by advocates of good government for lawmakers to sell their stakes in individual stocks to avoid conflicts of interest, Greene’s sale may 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 the DraftKings 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 Republican fanatics for Trump, Greene oriented his policy around the “cancellation of culture” and the alleged censorship of Big Tech to those who promote pro-Trump views. On his social media platforms, where he has hundreds of thousands of followers, Greene posts a new and smoldering indignation over them almost daily.
Facebook, shares that Greene and her husband sold for up to $ 65,000 in net gain on Jan. 20, have been a constant target for her as a candidate and as a member of Congress. 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 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 of support for black-owned businesses during the holiday season and criticized it as anti-Semitic 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 to pieces. ”.
“When I get to Congress,” declared Greene, “Big Tech will be held accountable!”
Ironically, in June 2020, the Facebook investor publicly asked his 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 other tech companies he has had, but his attacks on the “Silicon Valley Cartel” leave little room for nuance, especially due to the dominance of the industry by Google, Amazon and Apple.
Greene’s sales of technology stocks could be interpreted as a sign that she wanted to sever any financial ties with companies she was so vehemently opposed to. A Greene spokesman did not answer questions about why she and her husband sold the shares when they did.
Just two weeks after the sale of its shares, however, Greene was calling on conservatives with similar ideas to take advantage of the free market system to develop alternatives to the technology companies it previously financed.
“Conservatives must come together to invest, develop and compete in Big Tech in order to protect our conservative values and speech from the endless screams of the police of thought. That would give people the ability to choose the online “community” they invest in, “Greene tweeted on February 7.
“The Silicon Valley cartel that controls social media, freedom of expression and even aims to bring down growing competition, like Parler, must be stopped. The way to prevent this is on the free market, while we can still … ”