Rubbing Shoulders in the Corridors of Power

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In this post, we take a look at the intersection of money and political power in the United States. The analysis is based on the number of times we see links in the press between United States Cabinet members in the current administration and members of the Forbes 400 richest Americans. These links are based on instances of two individuals being mentioned in the same sentence in one of the sources analyzed by Recorded Future. The colors in the chart signify the degree of linkage with red being high and blue being lowest.

 

For example, in the below section of the chart you see that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is highly connected to Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Bloomberg, etc. Overall the chart shows that Secretary Clinton is the most connected of all of the cabinet to the country’s richest individuals.

Hillary Clinton Business Connections

The cabinet member with the next highest number of connections is Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner. In this portion of the chart we see wealthy individuals connected to him and to no one else in the cabinet. Not surprisingly this group contains a collection of Wall Street Investors such as Stanley Druckenmiller, John Paulson, and Leon Cooperman.

Timothy Geithner Connections

Looking at the data in the other dimension, columns with a large number of entries denote a member of the Forbes 400 with connections to many cabinet members. We find Michael Bloomberg is the most connected through his political role as Mayor of New York.

We also see large numbers of connections for a group of high tech titans such as Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt and Steve Case. For example, you can see the wide variety of connections held by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Google is in an interesting position with the Obama administration due its importance as a leader in technology and concerns about its practices. Eric Schmidt in particular is a “long standing” friend of President Obama at the same time Google is under investigation for Anti-Trust activities.

Cabinet and Fortune 400 Highlights

Other connections of note circled above in the chart include:

Take a look at the heatmap presented above and let us know what you think in the comments. If you'd like to conduct similar media analysis, check out details of the Recorded Future API and get in touch.