Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg: ‘I Want Hillary Clinton to Win Badly’
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta that she “badly” wants Clinton to become president, according to new emails released by Wikileaks.
In a May 2015 email thread, Podesta offered his condolences for the sudden death of Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg. Sandberg thanked Podesta for his kind words, then affirmed her desire to “help” Clinton win the 2016 election. She mentioned a home visit where Clinton interacted with her children.
“I still want HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] to win badly,” she wrote. “I am still here to help as I can. She came over and was magical with my kids.”
This exchange confirms Sandberg has a more personal stake in her Clinton campaign interactions than suspected. Just last month, Politico’s Ben White wrote of hearing chatter that she might consider serving in Clinton’s would-be Cabinet, though it would be a tough decision to leave her California home for Washington, DC.
Previous batches of leaked emails reveal that Sandberg offered to put Podesta in contact with Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, stating that Zuckerberg was interested in influencing policies relating to “social oriented objectives (like immigration, education or basic scientific research).” Podesta appears to have at least arranged that meeting; his assistant emailed him in August 2015 with directions to Zuckerberg’s office.
Zuckerberg has been politically active since 2013, when he co-founded a 501(c)3 called “FWD.us,” primarily lobbying for expansion of the H-1B visa program and amnesty for illegal immigrants. The organization has not openly endorsed Clinton’s “dream,” revealed in a private speech to a Brazilian bank, of “a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders,” but it has forcefully attacked Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s stance of strong border security, including a physical wall.
Zuckerberg has also partnered with Germany’s government to crack down on “hate speech” — which has effectively targeted users who point out crimes by migrants and refugees — even banning a support group for victims of sexual assault.
In the United States, Facebook has suffered a string of embarrassing headlines this election season — as its moderators have deleted or banned innocuous content which criticizes Clinton, a whole community page that mocked her, and the personal profiles of users with pro-Trump opinions. When Wikileaks released emails exposing the Democratic National Committee’s sabotage of Clinton’s primary rival Bernie Sanders, the site blocked users from sharing links to the leak. When Wikileaks complained, Facebook said the suppression of those links was an “accident.”
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta that she “badly” wants Clinton to become president, according to new emails released by Wikileaks.
In a May 2015 email thread, Podesta offered his condolences for the sudden death of Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg. Sandberg thanked Podesta for his kind words, then affirmed her desire to “help” Clinton win the 2016 election. She mentioned a home visit where Clinton interacted with her children.
“I still want HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton] to win badly,” she wrote. “I am still here to help as I can. She came over and was magical with my kids.”
This exchange confirms Sandberg has a more personal stake in her Clinton campaign interactions than suspected. Just last month, Politico’s Ben White wrote of hearing chatter that she might consider serving in Clinton’s would-be Cabinet, though it would be a tough decision to leave her California home for Washington, DC.
Previous batches of leaked emails reveal that Sandberg offered to put Podesta in contact with Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, stating that Zuckerberg was interested in influencing policies relating to “social oriented objectives (like immigration, education or basic scientific research).” Podesta appears to have at least arranged that meeting; his assistant emailed him in August 2015 with directions to Zuckerberg’s office.
Zuckerberg has been politically active since 2013, when he co-founded a 501(c)3 called “FWD.us,” primarily lobbying for expansion of the H-1B visa program and amnesty for illegal immigrants. The organization has not openly endorsed Clinton’s “dream,” revealed in a private speech to a Brazilian bank, of “a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders,” but it has forcefully attacked Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s stance of strong border security, including a physical wall.
Zuckerberg has also partnered with Germany’s government to crack down on “hate speech” — which has effectively targeted users who point out crimes by migrants and refugees — even banning a support group for victims of sexual assault.
In the United States, Facebook has suffered a string of embarrassing headlines this election season — as its moderators have deleted or banned innocuous content which criticizes Clinton, a whole community page that mocked her, and the personal profiles of users with pro-Trump opinions. When Wikileaks released emails exposing the Democratic National Committee’s sabotage of Clinton’s primary rival Bernie Sanders, the site blocked users from sharing links to the leak. When Wikileaks complained, Facebook said the suppression of those links was an “accident.”
