When she presented her candidate, rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has constantly opposed tech giants like Facebook for allegedly censoring and silencing pro-Trump Republicans, promising to fight what she called the ‘Silicon Valley Cartel’ after she was elected to Congress.
During her first two months on Capitol Hill, Greene tackled the anti-technological rhetoric out loud. But shortly after her swearing-in, she quietly began to drop significant shares in the same companies she so vehemently denounced – and in the process take up a healthy amount.
According to her latest form of financial disclosure, launched on February 19, Greene and her husband sold $ 49,000 to $ 210,000 worth of shares in Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon on January 20.
It is unclear exactly how much Greene and her husband, Perry, made from each individual company stock, as congressional forms contain only a wide range of values, but can amount to as much as $ 65,000 each for the four technology stocks. Some shares were jointly owned by the couple and others were owned only by her husband.
Greene’s only other form of public financial disclosure, filed in May 2020 when she was a candidate, includes a joint or several ownership of up to $ 65,000 in Apple shares, $ 30,000 in Facebook shares, $ 30,000 in Amazon shares and $ 15,000 in Google shares. The couple sold these shares at a profit in January – the official form contains a capital gain of more than $ 200 – but the exact figure is unknown.
In light of the increasing pressure from good government advocates to force lawmakers to sell their shares to avoid conflicts of interest, Greene’s sale may be welcomed. But her financial disclosure report shows that she has still invested in a number of other companies, from Fortune 500 giants such as Goldman Sachs and Lockheed Martin to the sports gambling platform DraftKings and the active clothing brand Lululemon.
There is also a clear irony in which Greene was personally invested, and later benefited from technology companies that wiped out her for months as totalitarian instruments of evil and social control. A Greene spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment on her share sale and why she initially invested in the companies.
Like many hardline Trump Republicans, Greene has focused her policies on ‘canceling culture’ and Big Tech’s alleged censorship of those who promote pro-Trump views. On her social media platforms, where she has hundreds of thousands of followers, Greene posts fresh, steamy indignation about them almost daily.
Facebook, of which shares Greene and her husband sold for up to $ 65,000 net profit on Jan. 20, was a constant target for her as a candidate and as a member of Congress. Last September, the platform removed a message from Greene in which she posed with a gun next to the images of the progressive ‘Squad’, on the grounds that it was inciting violence. The IDP candidate claims to be canceled and is now wearing a face mask in Congress with the message ‘CENSORED’.
At various points in 2020, Greene called Facebook racist because he promoted a message to support black-owned enterprises during the holiday season, expressing it as an anti-Semitic accusation for censoring far-right Islamophobic provocateur Laura Loomer. She also accused Facebook of allowing “ANTIFA” terrorist attacks and accused the social media platform of “canceling our children.”
In October, when a Facebook spokesman tweeted they would not link to a New York Post story about Hunter Biden, the Georgian Republican tweeted indignantly that ‘the Silicon Valley cartel took the first amendment and to shreds tore. ‘
“If I come to Congress,” Greene declared, “Big Tech will be held accountable!”
Ironically, in June 2020, the Facebook investor publicly urged her thousands of followers to use a competitor instead. “For those who are not yet censored by Facebook,” she wrote, “I encourage you to open a Parler account today!”
Greene was less critical of the other technology ventures she once owned, but her broad figures against the ‘Silicon Valley Cartel’ leave little room for nuance, especially given Google, Amazon and Apple’s dominance in the sector.
Greene’s sale of technology shares could be interpreted as a sign that she wants to sever financial ties with companies she has so strictly opposed. A Greene spokeswoman did not respond to questions about why she and her husband sold the shares.
Barely two weeks after her share sale, however, Greene called on conservatives with the same thinking to take advantage of the free market system to develop alternatives to the technology ventures she previously financed.
‘Conservatives need to work together to invest in Big Tech, develop and compete to protect our conservative values and speech from the never-ending cries of the mind police. It would give people the ability to choose the online “community” in which they invest, “Greene tweeted on February 7.
‘The Silicon Valley cartel that controls social media, freedom of speech and even an increase in competition, like Parler, must be stopped. The way to stop this is in the free market, while we can still … ”