Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s son-in-law has been hired by top private equity firm Blackstone — the most recent member of the family to land a lucrative gig with an industrial giant that’s subject to government regulation.
Michael Shapiro, the Princeton- and Yale-educated lawyer who most recently worked for the Biden administration as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy on the Department of Transportation, has been hired as director for presidency affairs by the Wall Street firm.
Blackstone, which is run by billionaire businessman Stephen Schwarzman, has $880 billion in assets under its management.
Shapiro’s portfolio at Blackstone deals with infrastructure investments and projects.
“Mr. Shapiro is a highly talented individual with deep experience in each private equity infrastructure investing and public policy, and we’re pleased to have him join our team,” Blackstone spokesperson Matt Anderson. “He won’t be involved in any advocacy before the Majority Leader or his office related to Blackstone business.”
Schumer’s office didn’t comment on his son-in-law’s latest gig when reached by The Post.
Before they wed in 2016, Michael Shapiro and Jessica Schumer met after they were each working for the Obama administration in 2011.Facebook/Michael Shapiro
The corporate said Shapiro isn’t a registered lobbyist like his wife, Jessica Schumer, whom he married in 2016. The 2 met in January 2011 after they were each working on the White House in then-President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, in line with The Recent York Times.
He went on to work for Hillary Clinton within the 2016 presidential campaign.
Jessica Schumer is a registered lobbyist for Amazon while her sister, Alison Schumer, works as a product marketing manager at Facebook.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has drawn scrutiny for his family’s ties to industrial giants that Congress is looking for to manage. Getty Images
The Schumer children’s ties to Big Tech have fueled some concerns the Senate Majority Leader has an inherent conflict of interest with regards to regulating powerful firms.
The Recent York Democrat has been accused of moving too slowly in bringing to the ground a vote on antitrust laws that goals to limit the facility of firms comparable to Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google.
During a recent sitdown with Democratic Party donors, Schumer said that a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) doesn’t have enough votes to pass.
“Sen. Schumer is working with Sen. Klobuchar and other supporters to assemble the needed votes and plans to bring it up for a vote,” Angelo Roefaro, a spokesperson for the Senate Majority Leader, told The Post.
Shapiro left a job on the Department of Transportation as a way to join Blackstone.
Blackstone and other private equity firms have been targeted by Schumer’s more progressive colleagues in Congress for tighter oversight.
Last 12 months, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) authored the “Stop Wall Street Looting Act,” which might bar private equity firms from forcing firms they acquire to tackle more debt as a way to extract dividends that they may not otherwise afford.
