Elizabeth Warren has been a leading proponent of breaking up Big Tech companies. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Elizabeth Warren and some of Big Tech’s most vocal critics are hosting the event for *****, who has been difficult to pin down on tech issues.
Joe *****’s campaign has signed off on a fundraiser on tech issues being hosted by a series of prominent critics of Big Tech, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The event serves as the latest clue in the challenge to figure out how a ***** administration would govern the tech industry, suggesting that those critics would at least have a line into his White House.
Warren and a half-dozen other big names are set to hold an October 27 event on “Advancing Innovation, Competition, and Prosperity in the American Tech Sector,” according to a copy of the invitation obtained by Recode. The event is one of the closest linkages yet between the most pro-regulation voices in the Democratic Party and the Democratic nominee, who has not publicly pinned down his precise positions on tech regulation.
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***** Victory Fund
The speakers at the event include David Cicilline, the Congress member who just led the congressional investigation into Big Tech companies; Tish James, New York’s state attorney general who is leading the states’ own investigations; and leading proponents of a tech breakup such as early Facebook investor Roger McNamee and influential Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu. And Warren, who made Big Tech issues a cornerstone of her presidential campaign.
*****, who will not be there, does not necessarily endorse every position espoused by speakers at fundraisers held on his behalf. But presidential campaigns vet and debate potential fundraiser hosts — and, in this case, it is not just that one or two hosts have a personal, private opinion about the conversation topic and they happen to be organizing a broader pro-***** event. Here the ***** campaign is blessing an entire event organized around one point of view — that the tech giants are too menacing and stifling out competition — featuring a lineup of the most high-profile leaders on the issue.
The ***** campaign didn’t return requests for comment.
One reason it is particularly revealing is that ***** has proven to be elusive on tech issues. Activists on the left hope that he will govern in a less tech-friendly way than Barack Obama did. But while ***** has made scattered critical comments about Facebook in particular, he has not made tech regulation a campaign priority and has left both the activists and the tech companies themselves largely speculating about what a ***** administration would mean for them.
Another interpretation of that, though, is that ***** is malleable on the issue — and therefore can be influenced by political assets such as campaign fundraising potential. One objective of the October 27 event hosted by Warren and others may be to raise a large amount and show ***** that there is money to be made — and that there’s political upside more broadly — by allying with the tech-breakup crowd. Tickets range from $250 to $100,000.
Because ***** certainly knows that there is big money on the other side of the issue. Some ***** supporters who are critical of Big Tech are concerned about *****’s ties to tech elites, such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. And in a sign of just how enigmatic ***** has proven on tech regulation, *****’s campaign has also hosted technology-focused fundraisers with Schmidt, a leading voice against the breakup of companies like his former employer.
So all told, the question these fundraisers pose is: Who will have more influence in Joe *****’s administration when it comes to Big Tech: Eric Schmidt or Elizabeth Warren?
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via Vox – Recode