Biden Senior Aide’s Role Limited on Some Crypto, Tech Firms

President Joe Biden will bar his new communications director from participating in legal matters, investigations, or contracts involving cryptocurrency or technology firms he previously represented, including Meta Platforms Inc., venture capital firm Haun Ventures LLC, and Shopify Inc.

But Ben LaBolt, who joined the administration last month, will be allowed to advise on the president’s approach to regulating cryptocurrency and social media companies, the White House said Friday.

LaBolt also counts cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap and Andreessen Horowitz, an early investor in industry giant Coinbase Global Inc., among his former clients at his communications firm, according to an ethics disclosure released Friday. He also served as a spokesman for West Street, the family office of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.

LaBolt’s restrictions are in line with ethics rules followed by other senior White House staff. His appointment comes as the Biden administration is under pressure to step up its role in Washington’s approach to digital currency, as crypto executives complain that the industry lacks clear rules and investors are facing billions of dollars in potential losses.

“As Bloomberg has described well, President Biden has repeatedly worked to ‘reign in the power of big tech,’” Robyn Patterson, a spokeswoman for the White House, said in a statement to Bloomberg Government. “The president drives our policy.”

The collapse of FTX in 2022 reinvigorated the push for new legislation and rules to police the industry. Biden has also been critical of social media companies for allowing misinformation to spread about coronavirus, including when he accused the industry in 2021 of “killing people” with pandemic fiction.

LaBolt was a spokesman for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and an aide in the White House. In 2016, digital marketing firm Bully Pulpit Interactive bought his communications business, the Incite Agency.