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David Sacks

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David Oliver Sacks (born 1972) is a South African-born American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who served as the first White House Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, the post commonly called the "AI and crypto czar," from January 2025 until March 2026.[1][4][24] Before entering government he was the first product leader and later chief operating officer of PayPal, founded the enterprise social network Yammer, which Microsoft bought for $1.2 billion in 2012,[3] and co-founded the San Francisco venture capital firm Craft Ventures. He is also a co-host of the All-In podcast.[2]

Sacks was not subject to Senate confirmation.[1] His authority instead came from the text of executive orders, which named the "Special Advisor for AI and Crypto" as a required participant in federal artificial intelligence and digital asset policy. Executive Order 14179 of January 23, 2025 directed him, along with the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, to produce a national AI action plan within 180 days.[5] The resulting document, "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan," was released on July 23, 2025 and carries his signature alongside those of Michael J. Kratsios and Marco A. Rubio.[9]

He worked as a special government employee, a category capped at 130 days of federal service in a 365-day period, and kept his role at Craft Ventures throughout. That arrangement, together with two ethics waivers issued by the White House Counsel's office, drew formal objections from congressional Democrats.[22][23] His tenure ended on March 26, 2026, when he said the 130-day allotment had run out; he stayed on as co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).[24][25]

Early life and education

Sacks was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1972 and moved with his family to Tennessee as a young child. He attended Memphis University School, earned a BA in economics from Stanford University in 1994, and received a JD from the University of Chicago Law School in 1998.[1] While at Stanford he co-wrote "The Diversity Myth" (1995) with Peter Thiel, a critique of campus speech and curriculum politics.[1]

PayPal, Yammer, and Craft Ventures

Sacks joined Confinity, the company that became PayPal, in 1999 as its first product leader and was later promoted to chief operating officer, where he was responsible for product management and design, sales and marketing, business development, international, customer service, and fraud operations.[1][2] PayPal went public in February 2002 and was acquired by eBay later that year.[1] Sacks is routinely grouped with the "PayPal Mafia," the cohort of PayPal alumni who went on to found or fund a long list of later technology companies.[1]

After PayPal he founded the genealogy site Geni.com in 2006 and, in 2008, co-founded Yammer with Adam Pisoni as a spinout of an internal Geni communication tool.[1] Microsoft announced on June 25, 2012 that it would acquire Yammer for $1.2 billion in cash, with the Yammer team continuing to report to Sacks as chief executive.[3] He later joined the HR software company Zenefits, becoming its chief executive in 2016 after founder Parker Conrad resigned amid a compliance scandal; after about 10 months in the role he was succeeded by former Ooyala chief executive Jay Fulcher.[1]

Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures with Bill Lee in 2017; the firm's first fund closed at $350 million.[1] Craft's published portfolio and Sacks' personal investments include Airbnb, Facebook, Palantir, SpaceX, Uber, Slack, Reddit, and Neuralink.[2] He also produced the 2005 film "Thank You for Smoking."[1]

He co-hosts the All-In podcast with Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, and David Friedberg, a show Craft Ventures describes as routinely one of the top podcasts overall and the number one technology podcast.[2] The podcast became closely tied to the second Trump administration's technology agenda: it co-hosted the July 2025 Washington summit at which the AI Action Plan was unveiled, and two of its four hosts, Sacks and Friedberg, were later named to PCAST.[10][25]

Appointment as AI and crypto czar

Donald Trump announced the appointment on Truth Social on December 5, 2024, saying Sacks "will guide policy for the Administration in Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrency, two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness." The same announcement said he would "safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship" and would "work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the U.S." Trump also said Sacks would lead PCAST.[4]

Structuring the job as a special government employee position meant no confirmation hearing and lighter financial disclosure obligations than a full-time appointee would face.[1] Sacks began work when the administration took office in January 2025. Federal AI activity moved quickly in those first days: on January 21, 2025 Trump appeared with Sam Altman, Larry Ellison, and Masayoshi Son to announce the Stargate Project, a data center venture that the participants said could reach $500 billion in investment by 2029.[26]

Joe Biden's Executive Order 14110 on AI, signed October 30, 2023, had already been revoked on January 20, 2025, in the blanket rescission order Trump issued on his first day back in office.[27] Three executive orders signed on January 23, 2025 then defined the new office in operational terms:

OrderDateWhat it gave the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto
Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (EO 14179)Jan 23, 2025Made the Special Advisor one of three officials required to deliver an AI action plan within 180 days, and one of three directed to review and unwind agency actions taken under the revoked Executive Order 14110[5][6]
President's Council of Advisors on Science and TechnologyJan 23, 2025Made the Special Advisor a member and co-chair of PCAST, a body of up to 24 members[7]
Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial TechnologyJan 23, 2025Made the Special Advisor chair of the President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, which owed the President a report on regulatory and legislative proposals within 180 days[8]

America's AI Action Plan

"Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan" was published in July 2025 by the Executive Office of the President and organized around three pillars: accelerating AI innovation, building American AI infrastructure, and leading in international AI diplomacy and security.[9] It sets out more than 90 recommended federal policy actions across those pillars.[14] The introduction is signed by Kratsios as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Sacks as Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, and Rubio as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.[9]

The plan was released on July 23, 2025 at "Winning the AI Race," a half-day Washington summit co-hosted by the All-In podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum, with speakers including AMD chief executive Lisa Su and Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar.[10] In his keynote, Trump thanked "White House AI Czar, David Sacks" and credited him with "organizing this very important summit."[11] Trump signed three AI regulation related executive orders at the event: Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure, Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government, and Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack.[11][12][13]

The plan's specific recommendations included revising the NIST AI Risk Management Framework to remove references to misinformation, diversity, equity and inclusion, and climate change; directing the Office of Management and Budget to consider a state's AI regulatory climate when awarding AI-related discretionary funding; and tightening enforcement of semiconductor and compute export controls.[9]

The plan drew organized opposition before it was even published. A coalition of more than 90 labor, consumer, civil rights, and research organizations, including the AI Now Institute, Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, released a "People's AI Action Plan" on July 22, 2025. The coalition called the administration's approach "a billion-dollar giveaway to Big Tech" written "by and for tech billionaires," and argued that it left workers, patients, and communities near data center buildouts without safeguards.[15]

Policy positions

Open source and open weights

The Action Plan Sacks co-signed devotes a section to encouraging open-source and open weights models, arguing that freely downloadable models let startups avoid dependence on a single closed provider, let organizations with sensitive data adopt AI without sending it to a closed model vendor, and are essential for academic research that depends on access to a model's weights and training data. It states that open models "also have geostrategic value" and that while the choice to release openly is the developer's, "the Federal government should create a supportive environment for open models." Recommended steps included improving the financial market for compute so startups and academics can buy large-scale capacity, expanding the National AI Research Resource pilot, and having the National Telecommunications and Information Administration convene stakeholders to drive adoption of open source AI by small and medium businesses.[9]

His most widely reported early remark about an open model was a criticism of a Chinese one. On January 29, 2025, days after DeepSeek released R1, he said on Fox News that there was "substantial evidence" DeepSeek had distilled outputs from OpenAI models, adding that leading US labs would move to block knowledge distillation and that this would "definitely slow down some of these copycat models."[16]

Export controls and chips

Sacks argued repeatedly that overly broad chip restrictions push customers toward Chinese suppliers and understate how close the competition is.[17][18] In June 2025 he said China was "not years and years behind us in AI. Maybe they're three to six months."[18] After the administration allowed NVIDIA and AMD to resume some AI chip sales to China, he defended the reversal in a mid-July 2025 interview with Bloomberg Television: "We are not selling the latest and greatest chips to China, but we can deprive Huawei of having this giant market share in China that they can then use to scale up and compete globally." He characterized the NVIDIA H20 as a deprecated part and called the resulting policy nuanced.[17]

That view was codified in the July 2025 export order, which directs the Commerce Department to stand up an American AI Exports Program soliciting industry proposals for full-stack export packages combining chips, data center and cloud services, models, security measures, and sector-specific applications, with selected packages eligible for federal financing support.[12]

Preemption of state AI law

Sacks pressed publicly for a single federal standard in place of state AI statutes. "You've got 50 different states regulating this in 50 different ways, and it's creating a patchwork of regulation that's difficult for our innovators to comply with," he said in March 2026.[24]

Executive Order 14365, "Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence," signed December 11, 2025, put that argument into an operating document and made federal preemption machinery run through his office. The order directs the Attorney General to establish an AI Litigation Task Force within 30 days to challenge state AI laws, and requires that Task Force to consult the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto on which state laws warrant challenge. The Commerce Secretary's evaluation of state AI laws, agencies' assessment of AI-related grants, an FCC proceeding, and an FTC policy statement are all to be carried out in consultation with the Special Advisor, and Section 8 directs him and the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology to jointly prepare legislative recommendations for a uniform federal framework with carve-outs for areas such as child safety and state procurement.[19]

Disputes with AI companies

In October 2025, after Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark published an essay describing his own fears about AI, Sacks wrote on X that "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering. It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem." Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei replied on October 21, 2025 with a public statement defending the company's record and noting that "startups are among our most important customers."[20]

Sacks also drew a line on federal financial support for AI companies. On November 6, 2025, after OpenAI chief financial officer Sarah Friar suggested at a Wall Street Journal event that a federal "backstop" might help finance AI infrastructure, Sacks posted: "There will be no federal bailout for AI. The U.S. has at least 5 major frontier model companies. If one fails, others will take its place." Friar walked back her wording the same week.[21]

Conflict-of-interest questions

Sacks' dual status as a sitting adviser and a working venture investor was the most persistent criticism of his tenure. The White House Counsel's office issued two conflict-of-interest waivers: an 11-page document in March 2025 covering his cryptocurrency holdings and a second in June 2025 addressing his AI holdings. Reporting on the waivers stated that Sacks and Craft Ventures had divested more than $200 million in digital assets, with at least $85 million directly attributable to him, that he had sold his position in Elon Musk's xAI, and that he had begun selling interests in roughly 90 venture funds. The waiver documents also recorded that his stake in Craft's overall portfolio amounted to less than 3.8 percent of his total assets when signed.[22]

On September 17, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Melanie Stansbury led a group of eight Democrats in writing to Sacks. The letter questioned whether he had exceeded the 130-day annual limit and said the White House "waived ethics restrictions to allow you to maintain those investments in the industries you regulate." The lawmakers noted that a schedule of every business day since inauguration would have exhausted the 130 days by late July, and asked for answers by October; the White House did not comment publicly on the letter.[23] TechCrunch reported that because of his government role, Craft Ventures had to run every AI and cryptocurrency related deal past the White House ethics committee.[22]

Departure and PCAST

On March 25, 2026 the White House announced the first appointees to PCAST, naming Sacks and Kratsios as co-chairs and 13 initial members: Marc Andreessen, Sergey Brin, Safra Catz, Michael Dell, Jacob DeWitte, Fred Ehrsam, Larry Ellison, David Friedberg, Jensen Huang, John Martinis, Bob Mumgaard, Lisa Su, and Mark Zuckerberg. The council may eventually seat up to 24.[25]

The next day, March 26, 2026, Sacks told Bloomberg Television that his non-consecutive 130-day stint as a special government employee was over, ending the czar role. He said he would continue through the council instead: "I think moving forward as co-chair of PCAST, I can now make recommendations on not just AI but an expanded range of technology topics."[24]

Timeline

DateEvent
Dec 5, 2024Trump announces Sacks as White House AI and crypto czar on Truth Social[4]
Jan 23, 2025EO 14179 tasks the Special Advisor with co-authoring an AI action plan within 180 days[5]
Jan 23, 2025Separate orders make him PCAST co-chair and chair of the digital asset working group[7][8]
Jan 29, 2025Says there is "substantial evidence" DeepSeek distilled OpenAI model outputs[16]
Jul 2025Defends resumption of some AI chip sales to China on Bloomberg Television[17]
Jul 23, 2025AI Action Plan released; three AI executive orders signed at the All-In and Hill and Valley summit[9][11]
Sep 17, 2025Eight congressional Democrats write to him about his day count and ethics waivers[23]
Oct 2025Public dispute with Anthropic over AI regulation[20]
Nov 6, 2025Rules out a federal bailout for AI companies after OpenAI's CFO floats a backstop[21]
Dec 11, 2025EO 14365 routes state-preemption decisions through the Special Advisor[19]
Mar 25, 2026First PCAST members announced, with Sacks as co-chair[25]
Mar 26, 2026Announces the end of his special government employee service[24]

See also

References

  1. ^"David Sacks." Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/...David_Sacks
  2. ^"David Sacks." Craft Ventures team page. craftventures.com/...david-sacks
  3. ^"Microsoft to Acquire Yammer." Microsoft News Center, June 25, 2012. news.microsoft.com/...microsoft-to-acquire-yammer
  4. ^"Trump picks venture capitalist David Sacks as 'AI & Crypto Czar'." FedScoop, December 5, 2024. fedscoop.com/trump-david-sacks-as-ai-crypto-czar
  5. ^"Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence." Executive Order, The White House, January 23, 2025. whitehouse.gov/...rship-in-artificial-intelligence
  6. ^"Executive Order 14179." Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/...Executive_Order_14179
  7. ^"President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology." Executive Order, The White House, January 23, 2025. whitehouse.gov/...visors-on-science-and-technology
  8. ^"Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology." Executive Order, The White House, January 23, 2025. whitehouse.gov/...-in-digital-financial-technology
  9. ^"Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan." Executive Office of the President, July 2025. whitehouse.gov/...Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf
  10. ^"President Donald J. Trump to Deliver Keynote Address at Winning the AI Race Summit Hosted by All-In Podcast and Hill & Valley Forum." PR Newswire, July 2025. prnewswire.com/...and-hill--valley-forum-302505499
  11. ^"Transcript: Donald Trump's Address at 'Winning the AI Race' Event." Tech Policy Press, July 2025. techpolicy.press/...s-at-winning-the-ai-race-event
  12. ^"Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack." Executive Order, The White House, July 23, 2025. whitehouse.gov/...the-american-ai-technology-stack
  13. ^"Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government." Executive Order, The White House, July 23, 2025. whitehouse.gov/...oke-ai-in-the-federal-government
  14. ^"AI Action Plan." Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/...AI_Action_Plan
  15. ^"People's AI Action Plan launches to provide counter-weight to Trump's industry-backed AI plan and EOs." AI Now Institute, July 22, 2025. ainowinstitute.org/...ustry-backed-ai-plan-and-eos
  16. ^Ray, Siladitya. "OpenAI Believes DeepSeek Distilled Its Data For Training." Forbes, January 29, 2025. forbes.com/...res-what-to-know-about-the-technique
  17. ^"US AI czar David Sacks defends reversal of China chip curbs." Taipei Times, July 17, 2025. taipeitimes.com/...2003840403
  18. ^"China, the United States, and the AI Race." Council on Foreign Relations. cfr.org/...china-united-states-and-ai-race
  19. ^"Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence" (Executive Order 14365). The White House, December 11, 2025. whitehouse.gov/...l-artificial-intelligence-policy
  20. ^"Anthropic CEO claps back after Trump officials accuse firm of AI fear-mongering." TechCrunch, October 21, 2025. techcrunch.com/...accuse-firm-of-ai-fear-mongering
  21. ^"White House AI Czar David Sacks Rejects Federal Bailout for OpenAI After CFO's Controversial Backstop Comment." WinBuzzer, November 6, 2025. winbuzzer.com/...roversial-backstop-comment-xcxwbn
  22. ^"David Sacks and the blurred lines of government service." TechCrunch, July 19, 2025. techcrunch.com/...rred-lines-of-government-service
  23. ^"Democrats launch ethics investigation into AI and crypto czar David Sacks." Nextgov/FCW, September 2025. nextgov.com/...408175
  24. ^"David Sacks is done as AI czar. Here's what he's doing instead." TechCrunch, March 26, 2026. techcrunch.com/...zar-heres-what-hes-doing-instead
  25. ^"President Trump Announces Appointments to President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology." The White House, March 25, 2026. whitehouse.gov/...visors-on-science-and-technology
  26. ^"Stargate LLC." Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/...Stargate_LLC
  27. ^"Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions." Executive Order, The White House, January 20, 2025. whitehouse.gov/...ful-executive-orders-and-actions

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