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Why Did Trump's Top FDA, Balaji Srinivasan, Pick Delete All His Tweets?

Balaji Srinivasan—a man who is reportedly Trump’s top pick to lead the FDA—has deleted all but one of his thousands of tweets. Normally, that might just seem like a smart move but with the Tweet-happy, shame-proof Trump administration it raises alarm bells.

gizmodo.com|Rhett Jones

You can see many of them on the Wayback Machine, which last logged his tweet count at 11,000. Google has also cached many of them and others can be found at this archive.is page.

Aside from their shared history in tech, O’Neill and Srinivasan are also well-known business associates of Trump’s science and technology advisor, Peter Thiel. Neither of the candidates have a significant medical background, breaking with 50 years of history for the agency’s heads.

Srinivasan co-founded the bio-tech firm Counsyl Inc. which specializes in DNA tests and pregnancy screenings to detect Down syndrome and chromosome-related birth defects. The biggest theory that people are floating for the entrepreneurs decision to delete his account is because he hates the FDA and has been vocal about it for years. He hates it in a burn-it-to-the-ground sort of way, not just a let’s-fix-some-problems sort of way.

For libertarian-minded folks like Theil, O’Neill and Srinivasan, the FDA simply functions as a way to stop companies from innovating.

“Exit” is a word that Srinivasan likes to say a lot. His particular brand of libertarian ideals is mostly about leaving the billionaires alone to do what they like and everyone should just become a billionaire. He even wrote an essay arguing that Silicon Valley should “build an opt-in society, ultimately outside the U.S., run by technology.”