Abraham Weintraub
Abraham Bragança de Vasconcellos Weintraub is a Brazilian economist and investment banker who served as Brazil's Minister of Education under Jair Bolsonaro from 2019 to 2020. He served as the Executive Director for the World Bank from the 15th district from 2020 to 2022, when he resigned his post in order to run in the 2022 São Paulo gubernatorial election.
Biography
Weintraub was born in São Paulo to a Jewish father, Mauro Weintraub, and a non-Jewish mother, Mariliza Bragança de Vasconcellos, both doctors who studied at Faculty of Medicine of Sorocaba. He is a professor at the Federal University of São Paulo, Master in Administration in Finance for Getúlio Vargas Foundation, and graduated in Economic Sciences at the University of São Paulo in 1994.An executive of the financial market with over 20 years of experience, he acted as the lead economist and director of Banco Votorantim and as a partner in Quest Investimentos. He was a member of the transition team of the government of President Bolsonaro, and was Secretary-Executive of the Chief of Staff Onyx Lorenzoni.
He became a member of Bolsonaro's transition cabinet in November 2018.
Ministry of Education
Entry
On 8 April 2019, Bolsonaro appointed Weintraub as the new Minister of Education, replacing Ricardo Vélez Rodríguez. Weintraub is close to Onyx Lorenzoni, the current Chief of Staff whom he previously served as Executive-Secretary.Departure
On 18 June 2020, after 14 months in office, Weintraub announced his resignation from the Ministry in a video with Bolsonaro posted on social media. He had been criticized for issuing statements deemed controversial, as well as for mismanagement.On the night of 19 June, before his exoneration was published, Weintraub traveled to the United States. To travel, Weintraub took advantage of the diplomatic passport conceded to ministers, due to the fact that U.S. travel restrictions related to COVID-19 barred civilians from Brazil starting on 29 May. This was cause for controversy, as a request to the Supreme Federal Court for the apprehension of Weintraub's passport had been filed the day before he traveled, motivated by the two open investigations against him.
On 20 June 2020, his resignation from the position of Minister of Education was published on the government's official journal. On 23 June 2020, the resignation date was rectified to be the previous day, 19 June 2020. The government also published a note stating that Weintraub's resignation request was only formally received after he had already left the country, on 20 June, and that Weintraub himself requested his resignation be retroactively changed to 19 June.
World Bank
In July 2020, Weintraub was elected as an executive director of the World Bank for a term ending on 31 October 2020. Officials from the Bank have criticized Weintraub for propagating false information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. He resigned in 30 April 2022 in order to run in the 2022 São Paulo gubernatorial election.Controversies
Racist remarks
After a meeting with President Bolsonaro in March 2020, Weintraub was accused of being racist and anti-minority, when he said he did not like the term "indigenous peoples". However, he claimed that this was as he "does not like to separate ethnic groups, and that for him there is only 'the Brazilian people' and not different groups in Brazil".On 4 April 2020, Weintraub also tweeted an anti-Chinese slur, insinuating that China was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and that it was part of its "plan for world domination". In the original Portuguese, his tweet substituted the letter "r" with capital "L" – "BLazil" instead of "Brazil" in a style commonly used to mock a Chinese accent. He later claimed that it was not a racial statement but an ideological statement due to his anti-communism.
Accusations regarding drugs in universities
In November 2019, during an interview with Jornal da Cidade, Weintraub accused federal universities of cultivating cannabis and preparing methamphetamine in chemistry labs, but did not present any evidence to support his claims:After the fact, 10 state deputies of Bahia presented an interpellation, questioning Weintraub's accusations. The then-minister responded by saying that his declarations were generic and that he had no intention of accusing any specific persons. Weintraub's statements would therefore be considered as an exercise of free speech.