US Senate Approves Sabet’s Nomination as New Ambassador to the Czech Republic
The US Senate has approved the nomination of investor Bijan Sabet for the post of US ambassador to the Czech Republic.
Sabet said his priorities would be to follow Václav Havel’s legacy of protecting human rights and media freedoms and to develop US-Czech security cooperation, including supporting negotiations on the Czech purchase of US F-35 fighter jets.
The last American Ambassador in Prague was Stephen King, at the end of 2020 he announced that he would relinquish this position when the new President Biden takes office.
Since then, the post of US Ambassador to Prague has been vacant. King was the ninth U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic. He took over the office in December 2017 from lawyer Andrew Schapiro, with whom President Miloš Zeman did not have a good relationship.
“We are pleased that President Biden has announced his intention to appoint Bijan Sabet as Ambassador to the Czech Republic. This demonstrates the strong friendship between the United States and the Czech Republic. The nomination must now be approved by the United States Senate,” said the US Embassy in Prague on Twitter.
Sabet, 53, is co-founder and partner of Spark Capital since 2005, which deals with venture capital. He directed his investments in Internet networks. He was one of the first investors in the United States to bet on the future of social networks. He is one of the top hundred most prominent tech personalities according to Forbes magazine.
Who is Bijan Sabet
Sabet has Iranian-Korean roots. He graduated from Boston College from 1987 to 1991, earned his bachelor’s degree there, and is currently a member of that school’s board of trustees.
– Lives in suburban Boston. He is married and has three children.
– Sabet has been investing in Internet companies for almost two decades. Since 2008 he has been a shareholder of the then still little-known Internet social network Twitter, and from the same year he also served on its board of directors until 2011. During this period, among other things, it rejected an offer from rival Facebook to buy Twitter worth $500 million. For this reason, Forbes magazine called him a “prudent investor” in 2017.
– Previously, he worked as a senior executive in several technology start-ups in Silicon Valley, California and Massachusetts.
– Sabet is a regular contributor to the Democratic Party, to which he has previously donated thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.
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