Margaret Cushing Whitman (born August 4, 1956) is an American business executive, diplomat, and politician who had served as the United States ambassador to Kenya since 2022 until her resignation on November 13, 2024.

The fifth-wealthiest woman in California with a net worth of $1.3 billion in 2010,[6] she spent, at the time, more of her own money on a single election than any other political candidate in American history.

in economics with honors from Princeton University in 1977 after completing an 83-page-long senior thesis titled "The Marketing of American Consumer Products in Western Europe.

She also imported the UK's children's television show Teletubbies into the U.S.[31] Whitman joined eBay in March 1998, when it had 30 employees and annual revenues of approximately $4 million.

[32] Despite initially not wanting to take on the role, during her time as CEO, through 2008, the company grew to approximately 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue.

[33][34] Originally, when Whitman joined eBay, she found the website as a simple black and white webpage using the Courier typeface.

[43] In June 2007, while preparing for an interview with Reuters, Whitman allegedly shoved her subordinate, communications employee Young Mi Kim.

[52] As well as renewing focus on HP's Research & Development division, Whitman's major decision during her first year as CEO was to retain and recommit the firm to the PC business that her predecessor announced he was considering discarding.

[53][54] In 2012, Whitman announced that HP would write down $8.8 billion of the value of Autonomy, the British software company it had purchased the previous year.

The announcement eventually led to a civil case in the UK in 2019 at which Whitman testified to having not carried out "proper calculations of the write-down.

[56][57] On July 26, 2017, Whitman stepped down as chair of HP Inc.'s board of directors, while remaining as CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

In September 2020, just 5 months after its launch, Quibi was considering sale or acquisition with a valuation of $500 million,[62][63] despite its $1.75 billion initial investment,[64] having failed to meet subscriber targets.

[67]” The failure of the app was predicted by many in the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem, with one critic, Rob Enderle listing this as the most recent in Whitman's “repetitive failures” due to her “inability to take responsibility for mistakes, an inability to support subordinates, a focus on shifting blame, and a lack of subject matter expertise.”[67] Whitman also served on the board of directors of the eBay Foundation, Summit Public Schools, Procter & Gamble and DreamWorks SKG, until early 2009.

[12] Whitman founded a charitable foundation with husband Harsh on December 21, 2006, by donating to it 300,000 shares of eBay stock worth $9.4 million.

Acknowledging policy differences with Clinton, Whitman nonetheless praised her "temperament, global experience and commitment to America's bedrock national values".

[105] Ben Huh, founder of the Cheezburger Network, of which failblog.org is a part, demanded an apology and the removal of the video, stating that the image was faked, and that the website is non-partisan and has never endorsed a particular political candidate or party.

[109] Whitman answered questions about her record in September, replying, "And I think the reason is, is for many years, I wasn't as engaged in the political process and should have been.

"[110] In September 2010, Nicky Diaz Santillan revealed that she was employed in the Whitman household as a housekeeper and nanny from 2000 to 2009 despite her status as an illegal worker.

[111][112] Whitman's campaign released documents which she said Santillan provided prior to her employment including a driver's license, social security ID, and application.

"[121] Others disagreed; immigration lawyer Greg Siskind stated Whitman was the employer, and the documents by law needed to be signed by her but were not, nor did they have a Social Security number on them.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted that Whitman "hired her, paid her and had direct contact with her for nine years", so should have known her legal status.

As CEO of eBay, Whitman earned approximately $1.78 million resulting from a practice known as spinning whereby executives who did business with Goldman Sachs could reap profits by getting early deals before the public on hot IPOs offered by the bank.

"[124] While Whitman was on Goldman Sachs' board, she served on the compensation committee, which approved multimillion-dollar bonus packages for then-CEO Henry Paulson and his top aides.

Public domain documents reveal that Whitman has a multimillion-dollar stake in 21 investment funds managed by Goldman Sachs.

[131] With perceived political partisan positions, Whitman was repeatedly thought to support reported human rights abuses by the Ruto administration including a specific case where other western diplomats in Kenya signed a statement admonishing abductions and killings during the 25th June 2024 Gen Z protests in Kenya which Whitman did not sign.

[134] Whitman said that if elected, on her first day[135] she would have suspended AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, for a year to study its potential economic implications.

[141] In an op-ed during her gubernatorial campaign, Whitman wrote, "Clearly, when examining our positions on immigration, there is very little over which Jerry Brown and I disagree".

[141] In a 2010 interview on television station KTLA, Whitman said, "I want to hold employers accountable for hiring only documented workers.

Whitman also criticized Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown for not defending Proposition 8 in the federal judicial system.

In a 2010 letter to the Sacramento Bee[152] Whitman's spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said, "Meg believes the state cannot afford the costs associated with high-speed rail due to our current fiscal crisis."