The White House visitor logs have recently become available to the public as a result of lobbyist groups vying for more transparency in the government. They have revealed exactly who’s been visiting the Obama administration from the tech world.
The tech person who visited most often is FCC Chair Julius Genachowski, who stopped by 48 times between July and September of 2009. While some of these calls were more social than business — a poetry reading and bowling number among his reasons for attending — it certainly seems like he’s a familiar face around the Obama Administration.
Microsoft has also been poking around, with Bill Gates getting a private meeting with Obama in March to which only three other people were privy. Steve Ballmer also made several visits to the White House to see Obama’s technology team, and Craig Mundie has also visited.
Google has also made an appearance, with chief lobbyist Alan Davidson dropping by in March, and VP Vint Cerf meeting up with US CTO Aneesh Chopra in September. CEO Eric Schmidt swung by four times in 2009, even managing two get-togethers with Obama, though neither was as intimate as the Gates gathering.
Other interesting visitors include people from Free Press, Public Knowledge, the New America Foundation, Skype and Creative Commons. Interestingly, there did not appear to be any visitors from Apple, nor from any large telecommunications or cable companies. Of course, the White House wouldn’t be complete without two visits from Bono, who while not being of the technological field, still gives the group a certain… elevation.
While no definitive conclusions can be drawn from who Obama’s administration has been meeting with, the visitor logs show that the groups above appear to have a willing ear somewhere in the current White House administration — or at least they did through October of 2009, the end date of the public records.
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