Tech leaders recommend colleagues for Trump’s cabinet

Tech executives have been trying to influence the incoming Trump administration to appoint Silicon Valley insiders for cabinet positions, The New York Times reported.

Given Elon Musk’s strong relationship with Donald Trump, many of these persuasion efforts have been directed towards him, including by friends of Musk like Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Palantir and venture firm 8VC, who has reportedly proposed some ideas.

Tech leaders have also reportedly floated Emil Michael, ex-Uber COO, to head the Department of Transportation. Before joining Uber in 2011, Michael was a White House fellow in the Obama administration and a special assistant to Robert Gates at the Department of Defense. Michael was reportedly forced out of Uber in 2017, shortly before Uber’s founder Travis Kalanick was pushed to resign from the company.

Jim O’Neill, a longtime associate of Peter Thiel, was meanwhile suggested to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, said the Times, though Trump chose vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

O’Neill’s name has come up before, notes the outlet. He was recommended to head the FDA during Trump’s first administration; at the time, he was working for Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management.