Former president and CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, was thrust into the national spotlight once again after Republican presidential nominee John McCain dropped her name as possible Treasury Secretary at Tuesday night’s debate with Barack Obama. Judging from cofounder Pierre Omidyar’s Twitter account, he took issue with McCain’s assertions.
Shortly after Whitman left eBay in March of this year, she made the short list of possible McCain running mates. Perhaps she wasn’t “folksy” enough. McCain clearly hasn’t forgotten Whitman, mentioning her alongside Warren Buffett as possible Treasury Secretary to replace Henry “Fight Credit With Credit” Paulson. McCain also mentioned Whitman was CEO “of a company which started with 12 people.”
A real time reaction from Omidyar on Twitter shows Omidyar’s apparent objection. “Ahem. Started with 12 people?” he tweeted. A quick check of eBay’s own account of its beginning includes only Omidyar from his home computer in 1995. (Other accounts include a couple of others, though, including his PEZ dispenser collector of a girlfriend.) Whitman didn’t join eBay until 1998, after the company went public.
Omidyar’s clear dislike for McCain was evident in posts afterward, twice sarcastically referring to tax cuts McCain would allow him to keep instead of using that money to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Omidyar is worth about $10 billion, and clearly, like Buffett, feels he can spare a little.
One wonders if Whitman would also think so, also taking her place among the world’s richest. If so, it would be another way Whitman would find herself fairly alone among major Internet billionaires, who seem to lean Democrat. But when it comes to technology issues, Whitman has historically sided against Republicans. In the past, she’s been vocal about her support of Net Neutrality, and for consumer privacy protections, both issues McCain has erred on the side of deregulation and acquiescence to market forces.
