A Google executive who said he heard a pitch to the company from Hunter Biden dismissed him as “riding daddy’s coat tails.”
A report in the New York Post notes that in 2011, Hunter Biden made some pitches to Google to invest in some of the businesses he was operating in China.
The meeting would have come at a time when the Obama administration, during which Joe Biden was the vice president, was considering whether to pursue antitrust action against Google. As noted by Politico, it decided not to fight the tech giant.
Kenneth Davies, who was part of the philanthropic and venture capital divisions, said Hunter Biden came to them with a barrel of ventures.
“He was pitching some crazy things like some Chinese stuff. … We kind of looked at it, and I kind of scoffed at it,” Davies said.
Davies said Hunter Biden was counting on his name, not his knowledge, to wow Google.
“He certainly did not know what he was talking about as it relates to energy. It was very much ‘I am Hunter Biden — look at the last name. Rosemont Seneca. We are brokering deals.’ He certainly did not have subject matter expertise about what he was trying to pitch,” he said, referencing an investment firm founded by Hunter Biden and several partners.
Davies said he could not recall the specific of the pitches made by Hunter Biden during the 2011 meeting.
“My overall impression [was] this guy has clearly just been riding daddy’s coat tails and I have better things to do with my time,” Davies said.
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Google issued a statement saying it never invested any money in any of Hunter Biden’s projects.
“These are mostly long-departed employees, and we have no record of any such investments,” the statement said.
The Post report said a hard drive form the laptop computer once owned by Hunter Biden had multiple Google executives mentioned in it.
Megan Smith, who was the vice president of New Business Development before being named chief technology officer by the Obama administration in 2014, was described by the Post as being “chummy” with Hunter Biden.
While at Google, Smith donated more than $75,000 to the Democratic Party, the Post reported.
The Post noted that Hunter Biden’s computer lists as contacts governmental figures, such as former Secretary of State John Kerry and former Ambassador to China Max Baucus, among others.
The Post reached Kerry’s answering machine when it called the number listed in the laptop. Baucus had a Chinese phone number listed, and the Post was unable to reach him.
And that, according to Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, is worrisome.
“Once again, this raises questions about the extent to which Hunter Biden used his father’s name for personal gain. Why does Hunter have these contacts? Did he ever meet or contact these individuals in their official capacity? And if so, how did those contacts benefit Hunter, his father and Biden Inc.?” he said.
