U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., weighed in this week following reports that McKinsey & Company “repeatedly allowed employees who served pharmaceutical companies, including opioid makers, to also consult for the F.D.A., the drug industry’s primary government regulator.”
“McKinsey & Company’s entire business model is to profit from undisclosed conflicts of interest,” Rubio said. “We know the company has been doing this with opioid producers and federal regulators, which underscores the massive danger posed by McKinsey’s work for both the Chinese Communist Party and vast segments of America’s national security infrastructure. The Chinese Communist Party poses an existential threat to our nation, and McKinsey cannot be trusted. Every federal agency should immediately cut ties with the company.”
In a December 2021 letter to McKinsey’s Global Managing Partner Bob Sternfels, Rubio wrote, “McKinsey & Company appears to have lied to me and my staff on multiple occasions regarding McKinsey’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese government.”
In addition to lying about its work for the Chinese government, McKinsey also refused to answer a July 2020 question from Rubio: “What, if any, safeguards does McKinsey have in place to ensure that work done on behalf of the USG does not inform the work that you do for the Chinese Government?” In an August 2020 follow-up letter, Rubio noted that “the company failed to address fundamental questions on whether McKinsey’s work on behalf of the United States Government informs its work on behalf of any client in China.”
“McKinsey’s refusal to answer those questions takes on new importance given reports that ‘a McKinsey consultant highlighted the firm’s work for the F.D.A. and stressed ‘who we know and what we know.’ Previous reports make clear that McKinsey’s “work with both the Pentagon and powerful Chinese state-owned enterprises poses a potential risk to national security that federal agencies can no longer ignore,” Rubio’s office noted.
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