I'm not in a position to know anything, but your question reminds me of the situation when I worked at Lucent in Asia years ago. There were various middle-manager/jr. exec types one would meet occasionally who were obviously useless and non-contributing, in that they had no direct reports and hadn't ever been on a project or sales effort. I was young and stupid so I would ask other people what was up. One time, I got an honest reply, from someone who looked over his shoulder first: "That guy? His uncle is the chair of some Senate committee. AT&T had him on the payroll so now we do. If you know what's good for you, don't ask about him again."