When she ran for office, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tech giants like Facebook constantly for allegedly censoring and silencing pro-Trump Republicans, vowing to fight what she called the “ Silicon Valley Cartel ” after she was elected Congress.
During her first two months on Capitol Hill, Greene noisily fueled anti-tech rhetoric. But shortly after being sworn in, she quietly moved to sell significant shares in the same companies she so vehemently denounced – bringing in a healthy amount of money.
According to her latest financial disclosure form, released Feb. 19, Greene and her husband sold for $ 49,000 to $ 210,000 worth of shares in Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon on Jan. 20.
It’s unclear how much Greene and her husband, Perry, made from each individual company share, as convention forms only list broad ranges of value, but it can go up to $ 65,000 each for the four tech stocks. Some of the shares were jointly owned by the couple, and others were owned solely by her husband.
Greene’s only other public financial disclosure form, filed in May 2020 while she was running, discloses joint or conjugal ownership of up to $ 65,000 in Apple stock, $ 30,000 in Facebook stock, $ 30,000 in Amazon stock, and $ 15,000 in Google stock . The couple sold these businesses at a profit in January – the official form lists capital gains in excess of $ 200 – but the exact figure is unknown.
In light of growing pressure from advocates of good governance to legislators to sell their holdings of individual stocks to avoid conflicts of interest, Greene’s sell-off might be welcome. But her financial disclosure report shows that she is still investing in a number of other companies, from Fortune 500 giants like Goldman Sachs and Lockheed Martin to sports betting platform DraftKings and activewear brand Lululemon.
There is also the downright irony that Greene was personally invested in, and later benefited from, technology companies she had denounced for months as totalitarian tools of evil and social control. A Greene spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her stock sale and why she invested in the companies to begin with.
Like many hardcore Trump Republicans, Greene has oriented her politics around “ canceling culture ” and Big Tech’s alleged censorship of those promoting pro-Trump views. On her social media platforms, where she has hundreds of thousands of followers, Greene posts fresh, steamy outrage at them almost daily.
Facebook, shares of which Greene and her husband sold for $ 65,000 in net profit on January 20, have been a constant target for her as a candidate and as a member of Congress. Last September, the platform removed a message from Greene posing with a gun next to footage of the progressive “Squad”, calling for violence. The GOP candidate claimed she was canceled and is now wearing a face mask in Congress with the message “CENSORED”.
At various times in 2020, Greene called Facebook racist for promoting a message supporting black businesses during the holiday season and condemned it as anti-Semitic for censoring far-right Islamophobic provocateur Laura Loomer. She also accused Facebook of “ANTIFA” of carrying out terrorist attacks and accused the social media platform of “canceling our children”.
In October, when a Facebook spokesperson tweeted that they would not link to a New York Post article about Hunter Biden, the Georgia Republican outragedly tweeted that “the Silicon Valley Cartel has passed the First Amendment and ripped it to shreds. “
“When I come to Congress,” Greene stated, “Big Tech will be held accountable!”
Ironically, in June 2020, the Facebook investor publicly called on its many thousands of followers to use a competitor instead. “For those of you who are tired of being censored by Facebook,” she wrote, “I encourage you to open a Parler account today!”
Greene was less critical of the other tech companies she once owned, but her caveats about the “Silicon Valley Cartel” leave little room for nuance, especially given the dominance of Google, Amazon and Apple in the industry.
Greene’s selloff of tech stocks could be interpreted as a sign that she wanted to cut all financial ties with companies she was so vehemently against. A spokesperson for Greene did not respond to questions as to why she and her husband sold the stock when they did.
Barely two weeks after her stock sale, however, Greene appealed to like-minded conservatives to use the free market system to develop alternatives to the technology companies she had previously funded.
“Conservatives must work together to invest, develop and compete in Big Tech to protect our conservative values and speech from the never-ending cries of thought police. This would allow people to choose the online “community” they invest in, “Greene tweeted on Feb. 7.
“The Silicon Valley cartel that controls social media, freedom of speech and even the fight against increasing competition, like Parler, must be stopped. The way to stop it is on the open market while we still can … “