Ivanka Trump Meets Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian to Discuss Parental Leave

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump met with Reddit Inc. co-founder Alexis Ohanian at the White House Tuesday as part of the push by the tech entrepreneur -- and husband to tennis star Serena Williams -- to promote paid family leave.

Ohanian, who also co-founded Initialized Capital, met with Ivanka Trump as part of a trip to lobby for federal legislation that would provide additional paid leave to mothers and fathers after the birth of a child.

He has said previously that he was drawn to the effort after the birth of his daughter, Alexis Olympia, in 2017. Williams nearly died from medical complications related to the birth, and was confined to bed for some six weeks.

“I applaud Mr. Ohanian’s advocacy for Paid Family Leave, for both mothers and fathers, an issue that has been of utmost importance to me and this administration,” Ivanka Trump said in a statement. “Working families across the Country need Paid Family Leave and we’ve developed strong bipartisan support and momentum in Congress on this issue over the past three years.”

Federal law requires employers to offer three months of unpaid family leave, and the president’s 2017 tax overhaul included a tax credit for private employers who offer paid leave. But the U.S. remains the only industrialized country that doesn’t mandate paid leave for new parents, according to the Pew Research Center.

The president’s daughter has highlighted Williams’s post-childbirth struggles in the past, tweeting in 2018 it was “ridiculous” that the French Open announced they would not give Williams a seeding when she returned from maternity leave, because she dropped in the World Tennis Association’s rankings while off the court.

Ohanian is not the only tech leader that Ivanka Trump has courted for her policy agenda. Last year, she visited an Idaho public school district with Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook to promote STEM and workforce development initiatives.

The Reddit co-founder is not expected to meet with the president while at the White House.

To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu, Justin Blum

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