A year-old defense company backed by a $63 million investment from board member and former Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is already working its way into the good graces of the Biden administration.
Two employees of the company, Rebellion Defense, are serving as staff members for President Biden’s transition team, alongside employees from more established tech companies like Uber and Amazon.
The American Prospect explains further:
What is Rebellion Defense? With a Star Wars allusion as its name, this firm is not your typical contractor. Rebellion launched in the summer of 2019 to craft artificial-intelligence (AI) software for the defense industry. Trade publications gushed about how innovative it was. It quickly raised $63 million, with the conspicuous backing of its board member Eric Schmidt. Schmidt is best known as the former CEO of Google, but he’s also a billionaire investor and an influential consultant to key government bodies.
Schmidt serves as chairman of an advisory board to the White House and Congress called the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. From official positions, he has advocated for the Defense Department and intelligence agencies to adopt more machine-learning technology. Meanwhile, as a venture capitalist, he has invested millions of dollars in more than a half-dozen national-security startups that sell those very technologies back to the government.
Government watchdogs consider those dual roles a conflict of interest. “He’s got many, many financial incentives to ensure that the Department of Defense and other federal agencies adopt AI aggressively,” said John Davisson, senior counsel for the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center.
As Breitbart News previously reported, Eric Schmidt has deeply tied himself to the leadership of the Democrat party, especially in the area of defense policy.
Google has deeper ties to the Democrat party than perhaps any other technology company, which is perhaps why some executives were caught on camera tearing up after Hillary Clinton failed to win the presidency in 2016.
An investigation by the Intercept found that hundreds of individuals either moved from Google to the White House or from the White House to Google during the Obama administration.
Eric Schmidt, who was executive director of Alphabet Inc during the presidential campaign, pitched himself as “head outside adviser” to the Clinton campaign in 2014, according to emails leaked by WikiLeaks. Schmidt — then still executive director of Google-parent Alphabet — was also pictured at Hillary Clinton’s NYC “victory” party wearing a badge marked “campaign staff.”
Schmidt is deeply tied to the Department of Defense, a relationship that began during the Obama administration. He is currently Chairman of the DoD’s Defense Innovation Advisory board. Schmidt’s relationship with top U.S. politicians has also paid off in New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo has asked him to “re-imagine” the state post-coronavirus.
Biden’s transition team is teeming with Silicon Valley insiders, including former employees from Google, Twitter, Facebook, Lyft, Amazon, and Airbnb.
This is after Google directly interfered in the 2020 presidential election by suppressing search visibility for Breitbart News and other conservative media outlets. Twitter and Facebook, meanwhile, suppressed the New York Post’s reporting about the Biden family’s overseas business deals.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. His new book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which contains exclusive interviews with sources inside Google, Facebook, and other tech companies, is currently available for purchase.
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