Eric Schmidt Brings Tech Into the Service of Government
The former Google CEO devoted himself to modernizing the U.S. defense and foreign policy apparatus. He is a key figure networked both in Silicon Valley and among establishment elites.
Eric Schmidt is an American technology executive, investor, philanthropist, author, and one of the key social and intellectual links between Silicon Valley and the East Coast establishment, in particular government and Democratic Party elites centered around Washington, D.C. An electrical and computer engineer by training, Schmidt was a career tech executive hired to be the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, from whence his fortune, estimated at around $25 billion as of July 2025, is derived.1 Schmidt, who is currently 70 years old, has long had high-level social ties in Washington, for example advising the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign and lending his private jet to former President Bill Clinton.2 Since the mid-2010s, Schmidt has devoted much of his time to persuading East Coast elites about the opportunities and perils of artificial intelligence as perceived by Silicon Valley. Recently, he became the controlling shareholder and CEO of Relativity Space, a competitor to Elon Musk’s SpaceX planning to build and launch reusable rockets.3