Sheryl Sandberg, the billionaire Facebook executive whose book “Lean In” has made her an icon to women in the workplace, is getting lots of attention as a potential Treasury secretary under Hillary Clinton.

But she’s also drawing red flags from progressives, who are suspicious about her ties to former Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, unhappy with Facebook’s international tax practices and wary about seeing the next Democratic White House stack its Cabinet with allies of big business.


That makes Sandberg an illustration of the lingering skepticism by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other progressive Democrats about the staffing and economic policies of a Clinton presidency — even though Sandberg saidthis month that she has no intention of leaving Facebook.

The debate also demonstrates the potential pitfalls that go along with vetting a billionaire for any top job in government, as well as growing anxiety in some circles that Facebook is part of an entrenched club of tech giants that have become all too powerful.

“She's a proxy for this growing problem that is the hegemony of five to 10 major Silicon Valley platforms," said David Segal, executive director of advocacy group Demand Progress.

Still, supporters say Sandberg — whose name has also been floated for commerce secretary — would bring many advantages to Clinton’s administration: Clinton's advisers view her as both highly progressive and experienced in the corporate sector through her years at Facebook and Google. She would be a high-profile woman in a Cabinet that Clinton has said would be at least 50 percent female. And in addition to writing “Lean In,” she has advised the Clinton campaign on women’s issues.

“She ticks an awful lot of boxes, and she would be great at the job even if she doesn't have extensive markets experience," said one close Clinton outside adviser. “She also has a pretty compelling personal story."

Sandberg, 47, lost her husband, Dave Goldberg, to cardiac arrhythmia last year. She has opened up about how the tragedy changed her. After experiencing a "deep fog of grief," Sandberg told graduates of the University of California at Berkeley in May, she learned that "when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, find the surface and breathe again."

“At the level in which someone like Sheryl might join, it would be about her personally," said Aneesh Chopra, President Barack Obama's former chief technology officer. "When you’re talking about Cabinet level, sub-Cabinet level, CTO or otherwise, you’re talking about individuals whose life stories are critical to their judgment and their capacities to thrive in advancing the priorities of the president.”

The Treasury post has become a central focus for Warren and other progressives who associate Wall Street allies like Summers with the Clinton-era financial-market deregulation that preceded the 2008 credit crisis. Sandberg was Summers’ chief of staff at Treasury before moving to Silicon Valley and becoming Facebook’s chief operating officer.

For now, Sandberg herself has said she isn't going anywhere. “I really am staying at Facebook,” she said this month at a conference in California, stressing that she is “very happy” in her current role.

Sandberg has been a prolific Democratic fundraiser, and her support for Clinton dates back to the candidate’s unsuccessful run in 2008 for the White House. This cycle she’s one of Clinton’s “Hillblazers,” the campaign’s designation for those who have donated or raised at least $100,000 for the former secretary of state.

And Sandberg can boast close access to the candidate: In March 2015, the Facebook executive was scheduled to brief Clinton and her top advisers on her research about “gender and leadership,” according to emails surfaced by WikiLeaks.

For any administration post requiring Senate confirmation, the billionaire would face a complex vetting process. Potential issues would include litigation related to Facebook's 2012 initial public offering, questions about her own tax bills and what to do with her Facebook stock holdings.

But Wall Street and other corporate executives are eager to see Clinton tap someone for Treasury with strong ties to business and view Sandberg as a strong choice. They say she has those relationships but comes out of Silicon Valley rather than Wall Street, making her a more difficult target for the left.

“It's not like she spent the last 20 years working at Morgan Stanley," said one Wall Street executive supportive of Sandberg for Treasury.

There is potential that Sandberg would be more palatable to the left if Wall Street watchdogs scored wins at other departments and agencies. But after a long presidential campaign defined by bipartisan concerns about a rigged economic system, Sandberg’s nomination would likely leave populists feeling cast aside by Clinton's most important economic policy hire.

To progressives, it would be a disappointing signal that would raise concerns about Clinton pursuing the economic status quo when it comes to tax policy and corporate influence.

“There is a sense that Silicon Valley's becoming the new revolving door for Democrats as Wall Street has become toxic in the wake of the Great Recession," said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Revolving Door Project. “There are real dangers in some of the practices in Silicon Valley."

Her connection to Summers also works against her among progressives.

Sandberg, who first met Summers when she was a student at Harvard and later served under him at the World Bank before going to Treasury, has been a vocal defender of her former boss. Summers was accused of sexism for saying in 2005, when he was Harvard's president, that women may lag in science because of “issues of intrinsic aptitude.” Sandberg later openly praised him as “a true advocate for women."

Questions about Facebook’s global tax payments would set up another potential conflict with Democrats, some of whom see tax reform and how to fund infrastructure spending as the most important policy questions heading into the next administration and Congress.

The Internal Revenue Service, which falls under the Treasury Department, has been investigating Facebook over issues related to the California-based company’s operations in Ireland.

That’s why some key players in the progressive wing of the party would be relieved if Sandberg were appointed to, if anything, a different post, such as heading the Commerce Department.

“When you look under the hood, there are complicated and potentially very messy issues,” a Senate Democratic aide said. “How her role at Facebook might color her perspective on tax reform and complicate the atmospherics around her taking a central role on that set of issues raise particularly big questions."

Nominating Sandberg would also spark doubts about Clinton’s approach to growing concerns about the sway the biggest businesses have over the economy.

The issue relates to Facebook because of its role as one of the world’s central arteries for information. While agencies outside Treasury play a more direct role in policing corporate concentration, Sandberg’s appointment could disappoint advocates pushing for a more robust anti-trust enforcement in the tech sector.

“If a senior Cabinet member is from Facebook, at worst it could directly interfere” in antitrust actions, said Lina Khan, a fellow with the Open Markets Program at the New America think tank. “But even in the best of cases there's a real worry that it will have a chilling effect on good-faith antitrust efforts to scrutinize potential anti-competitive implications of dominant tech platforms.”