Tim Wu, one of the White House’s top technology advisers and anti-trust experts, currently holds millions in bitcoin and FIL, according to a report by Politico on Monday.
The report cites a personal financial disclosure that Wu recently filed and estimates he owns between $1 million and $5 million in bitcoin. The adviser also has between $100,001 and $250,000 in FIL, the native coin of the digital storage and data retrieval platform Filecoin.
U.S. President Joe Biden appointed Wu in March as special assistant for technology and competition policy at the National Economic Council. Before his term, he taught at Columbia Law School, though he has also had stints at the Federal Trade Commission and National Economic Council (in a different role) under former President Barack Obama.
The adviser has long been a critic of the power Big Tech companies possess, having written numerous academic papers about information, communication platforms and the internet as well as a few books. He coined the term “net neutrality” in 2002.
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While posted as a top government official, Wu has recused himself from “any particular matters involving bitcoin or cryptocurrency” in general due to his financial interests, an anonymous official told Politico.