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Microsoft has recruited Rishi Sunak Told the former Prime Minister that he should not advocate for this Government On behalf of the firm.
Mr Sunak has joined American The tech giant, as a salaried part-time senior advisor, provides company leaders with a “high-level strategic perspective on macro-economic and geopolitical trends and how they intersect with innovation, regulation and digital transformation”, and to speak at events.
According to the Akoba (Advisory Committee on Professional Appointments) report, he will not advise on UK policy matters.
Mr Sunak was Prime Minister between October 2022 and July 2024.
Last year it was thought he might be eyeing a job in Silicon Valley, California, after his general election defeat.
But in his final Prime Minister’s Questions as Conservative leader, Mr Sunak vowed to spend more time in “the greatest place on earth”, referring to his Richmond and Northallerton constituency, and added: “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in Yorkshire.”
Acoba, the business watchdog, said Mr Sunak should no longer advise or on behalf of Seattle-based Microsoft on government work or its contracts until the end of next year.
He has been asked not to lobby the government or use his Whitehall contacts during that time and to limit his work to “providing advice on strategy, macro-economic and geopolitical matters that do not conflict with his activities in Number 10”.
The time Mr Sunak has spent on the opposition benches – more than a year – “may have helped to reduce the prominence and currency of the information” he had access to, cabinet Office Told Akoba.
Mr Sunak was urged by Microsoft chairman Brad Smith to “take a hard look” at competition rules in 2023 after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked the firm from acquiring Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard.
Mr Smith said the move had shaken “confidence” in Britain, and Mr Sunak’s official spokesman responded at the time that “claims like this are not borne out by the facts”.
Microsoft later completed a deal with CMA approval.
Mr Sunak has also played a role at San Francisco-based Anthropic, which developed cloud artificial intelligence (AI) models.
Since leaving the position he has also become a senior advisor to Goldman Sachs, where he previously worked between 2001 and 2004.