Mark Zuckerberg recommended campaign staff to Pete Buttigieg

Mark Zuckerberg has recommended several potential hires to Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, it was revealed Monday.

The Facebook CEO sent emails earlier this year to Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign manager Mike Schmuhl with names he thought the campaign should Quora Ads Accounts – Providervcc.com, a question-and-answer startup founded by former Facebook employees, and he worked at Facebook for almost four years starting in 2010. Wornhoff has worked in Democratic politics in Indiana and was previously a machine learning engineer at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

‘Since the beginning of the campaign, we’ve built a top-tier operation with more than 430 staff in South Bend and around the country,’ Meagher said. ‘The staffers come from all types of background, and everyone is working hard every day to elect Pete to the White House.’

When Zuckerberg was asked about the emails on Monday, he acknowledged that he and his wife passed along hiring recommendations, but denied that the involvement was any sort of endorsement.

‘I think this should probably not be misconstrued as if I’m like deeply involved in trying to support their campaign or something like that,’ he said.

A spokesman for the Zuckerberg and Chan told Bloomberg that the prospective employees who were recommended asked the tech mogul and Chan to pass their names along.

‘Having seen Mark’s visit to South Bend in 2017 and Facebook Live with Mayor Buttigieg, colleagues later asked Mark and Priscilla to connect them with the Buttigieg campaign as they were interested in joining,’ Ben LaBolt said in a statement.

LaBolt did not say if Zuckerberg made similar connections for other political candidates.

Zuckerberg, 35, and the 37-year-old Democratic presidential candidate had overlapping time at Harvard and Buttigieg was among Facebook’s first 300 users, when the site was still restricted to students at the ivy league university.

Buttigieg was friends with two of Zuckerberg’s then-roommates, but the two weren’t close until years later, when a mutual Harvard friend introduced them to each other.

In April 2017, Zuckerberg made a stop in South Bend to visit with Buttigieg.

Zuckerberg advising Buttigieg is an uncommon example of direct involvement in a political campaign from one of the world’s most powerful tech executives.

Several high-ranking officials at Facebook Inc. have also donated to Buttigieg’s campaign, including former president of PayPal and current Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook David Marcus and one of the tech giant’s longest-tenured executives Naomi Gleit.

Zuckerberg’s close friend and Facebook’s former chief product officer Chris Cox has also donated to Buttigieg’s campaign.

The Facebook founder and CEO used to make more frequent political contributions, but has steered clear of issuing donations or endorsement to anyone in the 2020 election cycle, especially after the social media platform received harsh criticism for being a pawn for those attempting to influence the 2016 presidential elections.

He did gift $5,000 to Facebook’s Political Action Committee in June. The PAC contributes to both Democratic and Republican candidates.

In 2014, he made contributions to both Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

Democrats specifically have escalation criticism of Facebook recently for its refusal to moderate political ads.

‘I believe that when its not absolutely clear what to do, we should err on the side of greater expression,’ Zuckerberg said earlier this month while delivering a speech at Georgetown University.

Warren, specifically, has repeatedly attacked Zuckerberg and his company for its decision not to fact check posts or ads shared by politicians.

Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday regarding Facebook’s impact on businesses that manage money and the financial and housing sectors.

He also appeared before Congress is April 2018 to answer questions on Facebook’s mishandling of users’ personal data.

If Buttigieg were to be successful in his bid, he would be the first openly gay major political party candidate, and would become the first openly gay president should he win in 2020.

Of the 19 Democrats still in the party’s primary race, Buttigeg regularly ranks among the top five – competing with the likes of more well-known candidates Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris.