According to a report by the Bull Moose Project, a nonprofit advocacy group committed to developing "the next generation of America First leaders and policies." The report, released on Thursday, claims that Schmidt has built an "oligarch-style empire designed to influence public policy."
The report is based on months of investigation into Schmidt's financial disclosures, tax records, business documents, and other publicly available information. According to the report, Schmidt has become "effective at changing government policy to benefit his investments through the powerful connections he has carefully cultivated through his membership on several influential government commissions and boards."
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Schmidt served as Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011 and then as the tech giant's chairman until 2015. He subsequently worked as the executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, until 2018 and as its technical adviser until 2020. During Schmidt's tenure at Google, the company significantly expanded its lobbying operation, launching an office in the nation's capital and registering its first in-house federal lobbyists.
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Schmidt has never been registered as a lobbyist. However, he has served on several influential government commissions and boards, including the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board from 2016 to 2020 and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), which impact U.S. policy toward AI and other tech and defense areas. Schmidt has served on government commissions during the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.
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The Bull Moose report notes that Schmidt and Innovation Endeavors, one of the venture capital firms he founded, made dozens of investments in AI companies while he was running the NSCAI. Meanwhile, Innovation Endeavors invested in the rocket launch startup Astra, which in October 2020 was selected by the U.S. Air Force AFWERX program to pursue the development of its Rocket 5.0 program. Schmidt, a vocal proponent of AFWERX's creation in 2018, has continued to promote the program through public testimony to Congress and following his stint as chair of the Defense Innovation Board.
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Schmidt is also an investor in Radical Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on AI and quantum computing startup investments. Radical Ventures invested in the startup Covariant, which was favorably cited in the final report released by the Schmidt-chaired NSCAI as one of the robotics companies positioned to "win the market for the software platforms that power the next wave of industrialization."
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There's no indication that Schmidt did anything unlawful or broke any ethics rules while chairing the commission. Public records also show he's more broadly complied with all filing and disclosure requirements. However, government ethics advisers have said some of Schmidt's investments while he chaired the NSCAI presented a conflict of interest.
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"It's absolutely a conflict of interest," Walter Shaub, a senior ethics fellow at the Project on Government Oversight and a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, told CNBC last year. "That's technically legal for a variety of reasons, but it's not the right thing to do."
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Schmidt's influence in the AI space continued after the NSCAI disbanded following the expiration of its statutory mandate. His philanthropic nonprofit Schmidt Futures, for example, appears to have been central in recruiting Craig Martell, who currently serves as the chief digital and AI officer for the Defense Department.
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At an AI tech event last year, Martell described Schmidt Futures as a kind of headhunter pursuing him for his current role.
"The one and only thing I did for Schmidt Futures was help them evaluate the kind of person they want for this job," said Martell. "We were talking about what this job should look like, and then about two weeks later I got an email from the deputy secretary of defense asking me to apply. So, I'm pretty sure the whole thing was set up to be a covert interview."
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Martell was never employed or paid by Schmidt Futures, which has denied playing any role in the Pentagon's hiring process.
Beyond Innovation Endeavors, Schmidt also played a crucial role in at least four other venture capital firms, according to the Bull Moose Project's research. One of the firms was First Spark Ventures, which includes multiple biotech/biomedicine investments in its portfolio.
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In January, Schmidt was tapped to serve on the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, a decision that prompted backlash given the billionaire's biotech ties.
"This is a potential horror show," Shaub said of the new commission earlier this year, expressing concern about commission members being able to shape federal policy that could benefit them financially. "Congress created this commission without adequate safeguards against conflicts of interest."
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There's no indication that Schmidt, a billionaire for several years, has personally raked in cash due to his government commission work. According to CNBC, a person familiar with Schmidt's thinking said Schmidt would donate 100% of the "net profits" from his investment in First Spark to charity.
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Beyond its report, the Bull Moose Project also created an interactive map with over 400 dots representing Schmidt's connections across business, government, academia, and beyond.
The map shows at least 50 former high-ranking government officials in Schmidt's orbit, raising questions about what many observers have called the so-called "revolving door" of D.C. insiders shuttling professionally between the federal government and outside special interest groups working as lobbyists, consultants, and strategists able to influence public policy.
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A spokesman for Schmidt declined to provide a comment for this story. However, a source close to him offered a brief statement on the report with a direct reference to the Bull Moose Project: "Appropriate name since their report is bulls---."
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Schmidt "has made himself a prominent Washington insider and leveraged his relationships with current and former governmental officials more effectively than almost anyone in recent memory," the report states.
Schmitt also maintains close ties with people still in government. Politico reported last year that Schmidt's "fingerprints are all over" the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) under President Biden, noting that more than a dozen officials in the office have been associated with the tech titan. Among them is Biden's now-former science adviser, Eric Lander.
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The report added that Schmidt Futures indirectly paid the salaries of multiple staffers in the science office for some time, sparking "significant" ethical concerns within the office given Schmidt's financial interests in areas overlapping with OSTP's responsibilities. Schmidt Futures subsequently issued a statement saying the OSTP "has been chronically underfunded" and long "pooled philanthropic funding" along with other agencies as part of "private-public partnerships."
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According to the Bull Moose Project, Schmidt's extensive network indicates a multifaceted conflict of interest.
"Making giant donations in exchange for political appointments, writing self-serving policies that are passed into law, promoting his business interests through government-issued reports, winning federal contracts through exploitation of his relationships… Schmidt is stacking the political deck," said Buzzetti. "Many of us have heard snippets of information on Schmidt's government advisory roles and investments, but when you put all the pieces of the puzzle together, an undeniable picture of conflict of interest and corruption appears."
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