Defense Secretary Mark Esper has removed himself from decision-making on a cloud computing contract potentially worth $10 billion, citing his son’s employment with one of the original contract bidders.
In a written statement last week, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said Esper recused himself from decisions on the so-called JEDI contract “out of an abundance of caution to avoid any concerns regarding his impartiality.”
The Pentagon is in the final stages of determining the winner of the initial $1 million Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract, which could be worth as much as $10 billion over 10 years if all options are exercised.
Hoffman did not identify Esper’s son by name. His son Luke is identified on his Linked-In page as a “digital strategy consultant” at IBM, which was an original bidder for the JEDI contract.