Key Sentence:
- According to the Federal Election Commission, Facebook’s top executives have made at least $3.9 million in political donations.
Two dozen senior executives have distributed 1,700 contributions to political committees. More than 1,000 of those expenses totaling $620,000 were donated to Facebook’s Political Action Committee. For its part, PAC has donated $2.7 million to various nominations and committees – including many to help elect lawmakers to oversee the company.
For example, 11 of the 12 senators on the Consumer Protection, Product Security, and Data Security Subcommittee received a total of $190,000 from Facebook’s PAC. In addition, the commission asked Facebook’s CEO to testify last week. And this Tuesday, a whistleblower who was previously a member of the company’s civil disinformation team will appear before the commission.
However, donations go beyond this panel. Senator Corey Booker (D-N.J.) has received more money from top Facebook executives than any other Senator, about $37,000. Another fifty-two Senate campaigns raised a total of $298,000. In addition, board members raised $600,000 from top Facebook employees. Of this, $37,000 was used for spokesperson Nancy Pelosis’ campaign.
The Joe Biden campaign and two support groups received $220,000 from Facebook’s top 24 employees. None of Facebook’s leaders have donated to a comparable group of former President Donald Trump.
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CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t spend much of his donations on the $116 billion campaign. The fifth richest man in the world donated only $91,000 to political bodies in his lifetime. Recipients included Pelosi and Republican predecessor John Boehner ($2,600 each) and the San Francisco Democratic District Central Committee ($10,000)
Lt. Zuckerberg, Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Sandberg, is much more active and contributes $2 million more than any other top CEO. In 2016, he donated $416,000 to a committee supporting Hillary Clinton, the largest single donation from a Facebook leader. Sandberg also donated $405,000 to PAC for Emily’s list to help Democrats in the election.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, which publicly advocates for child app abuse, has donated $30,000 in political donations, almost all of it to the company’s PAC.
Not considered one of the company’s top 24 executives, Joel Kaplan, the company’s vice president of global public policy, is a major financier. After Kaplan joined Facebook in 2011, Kaplan, former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, gave $373,000, primarily to Republicans in Congress.
Those who have appeared before Congress recently have given much more modestly. Antigone Davis, Facebook’s head of global security, testified last week. His only donation was a $2,700 gift for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Francis Haugen, a Facebook informant who will appear before a Senate panel on Tuesday, donated about $2,000 — nearly all of it to the democratic donation platform ActBlue.