Apple Mulls Former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney as PR Chief

Image via Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

Kara Swisher from Re/code always gets the scoops and in her latest story about Uber’s search for a new PR chief, she dropped a line to note former White House press secretary Jay Carney’s name is “being bandied about” at Apple:

Kalanick is still looking, having talked to other political players such as former Obama White House press secretary Jay Carney (whose name is also being bandied about for the other big job opening in tech PR, at Apple). In addition, said sources, Uber is looking at big corporate names.

Katie Cotton, Apple’s longtime PR chief, retired earlier this year prior to WWDC 2014 after serving 18 years with the company, which was noted in early May by Re/code.

As for Carney, he resigned his post from the Obama Administration in a statement made at the end of May and said he would keep working until mid-June. This timing uncanny–unleash the conspiracy theorists!

The former press secretary is no stranger to Apple, as he was also on hand when Obama organized a dinner with tech giants including late Apple CEO Steve Jobs back in 2011 and also when Tim Cook testified in front of a Senate hearing regarding Apple’s overseas profits and taxes.

Here’s an example of how good Carney is at his job, when he was asked about the White House’s position on Apple last year regarding Tim Cook testifying in front of a Senate hearing over taxes:

Q Let me ask you just briefly on a different topic. I know that the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, is testifying today and a Senate panel said that Apple is avoiding billions of dollars in U.S. taxes by shifting its profits to foreign affiliates. Obviously this doesn’t help in terms of the White House’s view on the way taxes and companies in the U.S. should help their own country in terms of paying taxes. What’s the White House’s position on Apple? Or on this situation?

MR. CARNEY: Thank you for the question. I can say that I can’t comment, for obvious reasons, on a specific company’s taxes. But the broader issue is one that is of concern to the President and one that he’s focused on, because in terms of the policy matters that it raises, the report by Senators Levin and McCain raises a set of broader issues around companies that ship their profits and their jobs offshore.

And it is our view that Senators Levin and McCain have done an important job in raising awareness of this issue and putting forward ideas to cut back on the abuses. As you know, the President has long argued that the tax code today is tilted against companies that want to create jobs in America while it rewards companies for shipping jobs and profits overseas.

As a result, he has long championed a set of proposals to ensure that American companies cannot use offshore profit shifting to avoid paying taxes, including a proposal for a minimum tax on foreign earnings that would provide a comprehensive solution to this problem.

We look forward to working with Senators McCain and Levin, and anyone else who will work with us to reform our tax code in a way that makes sure that everyone is paying their fair share and that our tax code is designed to reward job creation opportunities in the United States instead of tax avoidance and profit-shifting opportunities to low-tax countries around the world.

And as anyone knows who’s been covering the President from the beginning here, and certainly in the discussions we’ve had about tax policy in the last few years, this has been a major priority of his because he thinks it is inexplicable that our tax code would actually be written in a way that rewards companies for taking jobs and profits offshore, and thereby penalizes companies for doing what we want them to do, which is create jobs and opportunity here in the United States.

Yup, he’d fit right in at Apple.