President's wealthy new chief of staff and ex-Covid coordinator served on the ... trends now
President Biden is bolstering his White House's Big Tech ties by tapping Jeff Zients, who formerly served on Facebook's board of directors, as his new chief of staff.
Zients, who formerly served as Biden's COVID coordinator, will become Biden's right-hand man after Ronald Klain steps down next month. He's expected to depart after the State of the Union on February 7.
Zients joined Facebook's board as an independent director in 2018 and did not seek re-election in 2020. Facebook said he departed to 'devote more time to his business and other professional interests.'
While on the board, Zients chaired Facebook's Audit and Risk Oversight Committee. Securities and Exchange Commission filings show the ex-COVID coordinator was paid $100,000 in cash and $300,000 in stocks for his work chairing Facebook's audit committee.
President Biden is bolstering his White House's Big Tech ties by tapping Jeff Zients, who formerly served on Facebook's board of directors, as his new chief of staff
Zients liquidated his Facebook stock and retained no equity in the company when he joined the Biden White House.
Still, there are concerns that social media companies could see special privilege with the White House - or vice versa - by the promotion of Zients.
'Joe Biden hiring a chief of staff, who is the top staffer in our government, while having deep ties to Facebook should be very concerning to Republicans and Democrats who are concerned about the growing influence Big Tech has over our government and country,' a former House Judiciary aide told DailyMail.com.
'Implications for this run very deep, having someone with such close ties to Facebook could lead to Facebook having special access, killing legislation to rein in Big Tech, or simply filling government jobs with people more friendly to Big Tech.'
Zients, a businessman and economic advisor to President Obama, served as the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, where he was credited with helping fix Healthcare.gov, the health care exchange website whose rollout was marred by technical issues.
Outgoing Chief of STaff Ron Klain (left) will step down within weeks. Klain has worked with Biden in government for decades
But Zients's investment firm Portfolio Logic was hit with a federal lawsuit in 2015 and had to pay $7 million to resolve allegations of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing involving a subsidiary (Pediatric Services of America Healthcare - PSA) it purchased in 2007.
According to the Department of Justice, PSA pocketed healthcare overpayments from the
