Reed Jobs, the son of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, has declined to comment for a piece on rumours that he once pondered running for Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat when she eventually retires.
The 81-year-old speaker of the House of Representatives, who has represented San Francisco since 1987, announced last month that she would be running for re-election this year. However, if the Republican Party takes back the House – as is widely expected – many anticipate that she could give up the Democratic leadership and retire from her seat at the end of the next term.
As limited speculation persists about who might end up succeeding the congresswoman when she vacates her seat, whether in 2024 or later, the 30-year-old Mr Jobs’ name has surfaced in a short article for news site Puck that claims he has mused about taking a shot at her post when it becomes open.
Specifically, the site reports that “one person who has talked politics with him” claims he said he would “strongly consider running for the seat” after Pelosi’s retirement. However, those remarks were dated “as late as early last year” (i.e. 2021) – before it became clear Ms Pelosi is, in fact, running again.
Mr Jobs declined to comment and, according to the site, “a person close to him pushed back on the premise”. In a message to The Independent, an Emerson Collective spokesperson said: “Reed has no plans to run for office and is focused on continuing the work he leads at Emerson around health.”
Born in 1991, Mr Jobs is the oldest child of Steve and Laurene Powell Jobs, and manages health investments at the Jobs family’s Emerson Collective, a for-profit corporation that invests in major issues including environmental matters and health.
To be clear, Mr Jobs has not previously pursued a political career, and there is no sign he has ever made any concrete move towards running for office. He keeps a relatively low public profile and so far, there is no sign this will change.
There are also numerous other figures routinely suggested as successors to Ms Pelosi, whose seat would be one of the safest Democratic strongholds in the country even without the benefit of a longtime incumbent.
Among those often mentioned as potential successors is her own daughter Christine – a suggestion that rankles many progressives who view Ms Pelosi as the embodiment of an overly corporate Democratic establishment dominated by the interests of the wealthy.
Ms Pelosi faced a Democratic rival for her seat in 2020, namely Shahid Buttar, a legal advocate and progressive campaigner who mounted a highly critical challenge from the left. He was endorsed by several well-known progressive figures, but ultimately garnered less than 23 per cent of the vote.
