Activision Blizzard has hired former Trump administration officer Brian Bulatao to oversee the Call of Duty Endowment at the company, according to an internal email obtained by Kotaku.
Bulatao is the former Under Secretary of State for Management at the U.S. Department of State for former President Donald Trump. Before his role with the Trump administration, he was a leading official in the CIA.
Bobby Kotick, the controversial Activision Blizzard CEO, made a note through the email that Bulatao was “leading the State Department’s talent, diversity, and inclusion efforts,” according to Kotaku.
Bulatao was described as a “bully” and as “Mike Pompeo’s attack dog,” according to a separate report in Business Insider concerning Bulatao’s role in the administration. The article alleges that Bulatao held a key role in the deflection of an independent probe into misuse of government resources.
“Brian will have management responsibility for our Consumer Products Group as well as other logistics business areas,” according to an Activision Blizzard spokesperson.
Bulatao was also described as an “enforcer and a shield” for Pompeo in a separate article in Politico and had several confrontational run-ins with Steve Linick, at the time the State Department’s inspector general. Pompeo, who at the time was under fire for allegedly misusing the time of State Department staffers to run errands for him and his wife, remarked that “[Linick] didn’t take on the mission of the State Department to make us better. That’s what inspector generals are supposed to do; they work for the agency head—that’s m—and they are supposed to deliver and help make that organization better.”
Kotick described Bulatao as an “unparalleled combination of business, military, and government experience,” according to Kotaku’s report.
Update March 30 12:23pm CT: An Activision Blizzard spokesperson has confirmed the hire and offered comment. Bulatao will not be involved with the leadership of any esports initiative.
