calling for a non-veiled candidate to come forward so that he could appoint her to 'any' bureaucratic position. Claims regarding technology Despite being the Minister responsible for communications, Yıldırım gave a speech at a Türk Telekom event in 2011 and was ridiculed for his apparent lack of knowledge about Cloud computing. In his speech, he claimed 'there's this thing called the cloud system. Everyone throws something into it and people take what they need. This is how I understand it, maybe it's something different.' He also claimed that users would 'lose their minds' if they tried to understand how it works. He added that one has to just use the cloud technology and try not understand it. A video of the speech re-emerged in 2016 shortly after he became Prime Minister, being contrasted to a speech given by Barack Obama promoting 'Take Your Child to the Lab' Week at the end of February 2016. Allegations about his son In May 2021, Sedat Peker, a criminal leader associated with the Turkish Deep State who was released by the AK Party government, started to release YouTube videos that contained several allegations about Süleyman Soylu. As Süleyman Soylu didn't resign, he started to target other people, including the son of Binali Yıldırım. In one of his videos, he claimed that Yıldırım's son Erkan, who is in the sea transport business with a large fleet, was involved in the cocaine traffic and has been to Caracas, Venezuela a few times to arrange the logistics. Later political career Special advisor to Erdoğan, 2014–15 After leaving office as Transport Minister in 2013, he was appointed by the AKP as an advisor to the party leader, whom at that point was Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. When Erdoğan was elected as the President of Turkey during the 2014 presidential election, he became a special advisor to the President despite being seen as a potential Prime Minister. With Ahmet Davutoğlu becoming Prime Minister, Yıldırım continued as an 'unofficial' advisor to Erdoğan since officially being appointed to the Presidential Office required his resignation as an MP. Leaving Parliament in June 2015, he was officially appointed and continued as presidential advisor until being re-elected as an MP in the November 2015 general election. Yıldırım was frequently referred to by the press as Erdoğan's closest and most loyal supporters. İzmir mayoral candidacy In the 2014 local elections, Yıldırım was approached by Erdoğan to