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David Sacks, former CEO of Zenefits, is seen here speaking at a 2016 TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, California.
Meet David Sacks, the new White House AI czar
Sacks will not be full-time in the role and will stay at his fund, Craft Ventures, but he will assume a lofty portfolio that covers two of the hottest topics in tech policy: artificial intelligence and crypto. President Joe Biden spent the second half of his term getting his departments and agencies to develop rulemaking on AI — and figuring out how to adopt the technology for their own purposes.
Meanwhile, Gary Gensler, Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission chair, has ramped up enforcement of fraud in the crypto industry — though he’s stopped short of any sweeping shutdown of the coins. Trump’s election, promises of deregulation, and his personal interest in crypto have led to the skyrocketing price of many cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin.
Trump will take a deregulatory approach to both artificial intelligence and crypto, but it’s up to Sacks to coordinate across a sprawling bureaucracy and determine how to execute that goal. As a Silicon Valley stalwart, and one who has not severed business ties to join the government, Sacks will soon be the face of Trump’s tech policy, likely a heavy hand rolling back rules and regulations started under Biden.
President-elect Donald Trump points his finger at the Palm Beach County Convention Center on Nov. 6, 2024.
Trump wants a White House AI czar
If appointed, this person would be the White House official tasked with coordinating the federal government’s use of the emerging technology and its policies toward it. And while the role will not go to Elon Musk, the billionaire tech CEO who has been named to run a government efficiency commission for Trump, he will have input as to who gets the job.
The Trump administration has promised a deregulatory attitude toward artificial intelligence, including undoing President Joe Biden’s 2023 executive order on AI.
That order not only tasked the federal departments and agencies with evaluating how to regulate the technology given their statutory authority but also how to use it to further their own goals. Under Biden, each agency was tasked with naming a chief AI officer. If Trump is to keep those positions, the White House AI czar would likely coordinate with these officials across the executive branch.