Monday, March 25, 2013

Mark Zuckerberg to enter politics with political campaign group

 The 28-year-old billionaire is forming a political campaign group that is expected to focus initially on liberalising the US immigration and visa system.

Mr Zuckerberg, who has previously donated $100 million (£65 million) of his $13 billion fortune to the state school system in his native New Jersey, is said to be ready to use another $20 million on the new venture.

Work on the group will reunite him with Joe Green, his room-mate at Harvard University, who also went on to be a successful technology entrepreneur.

The pair are courting other financial backers.

Technology firms such as Mr Zuckerberg's social networking giant have complained that America's strict migration controls prevent them from recruiting talented foreigners and overseas graduates.

Earlier this month he and 99 other chief executives wrote a letter to President Barack Obama and leaders in Congress, urging them to ensure that plans currently being drawn up address this problem.

"Many high-skilled immigrants who want to stay in America are forced to leave because they are unable to obtain permanent visas," they wrote. "Some do not bother to come in the first place".

Mr Zuckerberg is also poised to further upset Left-wing admirers whom he shocked earlier this year by hosting a fundraiser in his California home for Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey.

His new campaign group is to be fronted by Jon Lerner and Rob Jesmer, political consultants from the Right wing of the Republican party, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Mr Lerner once produced an advertisement dismissing American liberals as "latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading" freaks.

However Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary for Bill Clinton and PR chief for Facebook, will also be involved in the campaign group, it was reported.

Senators from both parties are thrashing out details of a bill to overhaul the US immigration system, which Mr Obama named as his top priority after being sworn in for a second White House term.

The plan is expected to include a "pathway" to US citizenship for at least some of the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be living in the country.