Meg Whitman & Goldman Sachs

Ties to Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs, whose executives donated $100,000 to the Whitman campaign, manages a part of Whitman's fortune. As CEO of eBay, Whitman earned approximately $1.78 million resulting from a practice known as spinning whereby executives who did business with Goldman Sachs could reap profits by getting early deals before the public on hot IPOs offered by the bank. While Whitman was on Goldman’s board, she served on the compensation committee, which approved multi-million dollar bonus packages for then-CEO Henry Paulson and his top aides. Public domain documents reveal that Whitman has a multi-million dollar stake in 21 investment funds managed by Goldman.^[38] Given Goldman's major investments in California state finances, all these ties to Goldman Sachs led to considerable controversy during the gubernatorial campaign.^[38] In response, Whitman vowed to eliminate any potential conflicts of interest, and publicly stated that she would immediately sell her Goldman stock and put her Goldman-managed investments in a blind trust if elected governor.