President Biden has nominated former Quibi CEO Meg Whitman to be the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, the White House said Wednesday.
Though Whitman has long been a Republican (she ran for governor of California in 2010 but lost to Jerry Brown), she raised money and endorsed Biden during the 2020 presidential election campaign, and would go on to speak at the Democratic National Convention.
Whitman, who was the CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and eBay before joining up with Jeffrey Katzenberg to launch the ill-fated shortform video service, becomes the latest Biden donor and Hollywood heavyweight to secure an ambassadorship from the White House.
Biden has also tapped former Comcast executive David Cohen as his ambassador to Canada, and nominated another cable executive, former Charter Communications vice chair Marc Nathanson, to be ambassador to Norway. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, meanwhile, has been nominated to be ambassador to India.
Quibi, of course, launched in early 2020 to great fanfare but shut down after six months as the coronavirus pandemic battered its business model. Quibi’s original shows, however, live on through the Roku Channel, now rebranded as Roku Originals.
