Speculation that President Obama’s former national security advisor and U.N. ambassador Susan Rice will become Joe Biden’s running mate shot up exponentially on Friday when it was revealed that she sold upwards of $300k in Netflix stock.
According to Deadline, Rice, who joined the Netflix board in 2018, sold $305,323 worth in the streaming platform’s stock base “according to an SEC filing late Thursday.” The news comes as Rice remains a top contender to become Joe Biden’s running mate for the 2020 election:
The option price of Netflix shares at the point of the sale was $508.68. The stock has surged as high at $575 this year as COVID-19 has spurred the addition of 26 million subscribers in the first six months of 2020. On Friday, shares were down 4% at about $488.
Under her board compensation package, Rice gets 125 stock options a month.
In 2016, Rice said in a federal disclosure that her net worth was between $14.7 million and $28.5 million.
Erin Pelton, Rice’s spokesperson, said the sale had nothing to do with the potential vice presidential pick.
“Ambassador Rice’s sale of a fraction of her Netflix stock has nothing to do with VP speculation,” the spokesperson told Deadline. “She filed a stock plan pursuant to SEC regulations over three months ago.”
In May of 2018, Netflix announced it would be adding to its board of directors former Obama administration United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice.
“We are delighted to welcome Ambassador Rice to the Netflix board,” said Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings at the time. “For decades, she has tackled difficult, complex global issues with intelligence, integrity and insight, and we look forward to benefiting from her experience and wisdom.”
Former Ambassador Rice said she was “thrilled” to be joining the “cutting-edge” company.
“I am thrilled to be joining the board of directors of Netflix, a cutting-edge company whose leadership, high-quality productions, and unique culture I deeply admire,” said former Ambassador Rice.
Appointed as UN ambassador in 2009, Rice became a household political name on September 11, 2012, following an attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Immediately after the attack, Rice went on as many as five Sunday talk shows to push the Obama administration’s talking point that a YouTube video mocking Muhammad was responsible for the attack, not Al-Qaeda militants.
Though Rice certainly has little appeal with Republicans, her appeal to moderates and independents might have received a boost this week when it was revealed that she maintains a close relationship with her son despite his support for President Trump.
“I have a 23-year-old son whom I love dearly, whose politics are very, very different from my own and from the rest of our family,” she told NPR. “My son and I will have some robust disagreements over some matters of policy, not all. And yet, at the end of the day, you know, I love him dearly, and he loves me.”
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