President Joe Biden has stocked his administration with alumni from former President Barack Obama‘s administration, and they have returned laden with cash and beholden to corporate interests.
New financial closures show that Biden’s top officials, including Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice, have closer connections to corporations like Apple and multiple times the net worth than when they first became bureaucrats, ABC News reported.
Rice disclosed a net worth of $139 million, up from between $13.6 and $40.4 million when she worked in the Obama administration.
She owns between $250,000 and $5 million in corporate stocks, including Johnson & Johnson, Apple, Microsoft, and Netflix. She sits on Netflix’s board and earned $300,000 last year from the company’s stock options.
Rice, who said humans “face no greater long-term challenge than climate change,” owns several million dollars worth of stocks in numerous oil and natural gas companies, including Enbridge Inc., a Canadian natural gas distributor.
As government employees cycle between cozy jobs in the bureaucracy and high-paying jobs on corporate boards, a Whitehouse spokesperson said the Biden administration is staffed with selfless patriots.
“These White House officials are experienced government leaders whose past private sector experience is part of a broad and diverse skill set they bring to government service,” the White House spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News.
“They have returned to government because of their deep commitment to public service, their desire to help bring our nation out of this time of crisis, and their strong belief that government can work for the American people,” the spokesperson said.
Chief of Staff Ron Klain, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, and coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients also multiplied their wealth.
Klain was worth between $1.4 million and $3.5 million when he joined the Obama administration, and now he’s worth between $4.4 million and $12.2 million.
He earned $2 million last year while working as executive vice president and general counsel for Revolution LLC, a venture capital firm.
Zients, the wealthiest known Biden administration official, owns between $89.3 million and $442.8 in assets, up from between $45.2 million and $205.7 when he became the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under Obama.
