David Sacks has concluded his role as Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar.
Speaking with Bloomberg on Thursday, the seasoned entrepreneur, investor, and podcaster confirmed that his non-consecutive 130-day tenure as a special government employee has ended, and he’s transitioning to co-chair the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) with senior White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios.
“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,” he told Bloomberg via a video interview. “So yes, this is how I’ll be involved moving forward.”
This shift means Sacks will be farther from the power center in Washington compared to his role during the second Trump administration. As AI czar, Sacks had direct access to Trump and influence in policymaking. PCAST serves as a federal advisory body, studying issues, producing reports, and making recommendations, but it does not create policy.
The council has existed in various forms since FDR, and Sacks emphasized to Bloomberg that this iteration boasts “the most star power of any group like this” ever assembled. The initial 15 members include notable figures like Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Marc Andreessen, AMD’s Lisa Su, and Michael Dell.
That’s a lot of billionaires.
Sacks told Bloomberg the council will address AI, advanced semiconductors, quantum computing, and nuclear power, with a focus on advancing Trump’s national AI framework unveiled last week. The framework intends to replace what Sacks described to Bloomberg as a disorderly mix of conflicting state-level regulations. “You’ve got 50 different states regulating this in 50 different ways,” he said, “and it’s creating a patchwork of regulation that’s difficult for our innovators to comply with.”
What Sacks didn’t directly address was the timing of this transition and whether his recent remarks played a role. Earlier this month, on the popular “All In” podcast that he co-hosts, Sacks publicly urged the administration to find a way out of the U.S.-backed war with Iran, outlining a series of worsening scenarios — attacks on oil infrastructure in neighboring countries, the destruction of desalination plants, the possibility of nuclear use by Israel — and advocating for a diplomatic exit. Trump responded by stating that Sacks hadn’t spoken to him about the war.
Asked about it Thursday by Bloomberg, Sacks showed his detachment: “I’m not on the foreign policy team or the national security team,” he said, adding that his podcast comments represented his personal view, not an official one.
While Sacks brings marquee names to PCAST, the council’s role has been variable in terms of influence. In some administrations, it held significant sway, while in others, it had little impact.
President Obama’s version was notably productive, issuing 36 reports over eight years and leading to substantive policy changes, such as an FDA rule that facilitated the market for over-the-counter hearing aids.
President Trump’s first-term council took nearly three years to form completely and produced few reports with minimal impact, while President Biden’s council was heavily academic, featuring Nobel laureates and issued a few reports before the administration concluded.
The current PCAST is vastly different, consisting primarily of active CEOs and investors driving U.S. technological ambitions.
Now, Sacks is once again in the private sector, likely to resume his role as an investor and entrepreneur. A spokeswoman for Craft Ventures, the firm Sacks co-founded and where he remains a partner, has not yet responded to inquiries, but TechCrunch reported last year on the ethics waivers Sacks obtained that allowed him to retain financial interests in AI and crypto companies while influencing federal policy in those areas, an arrangement that drew criticism from ethics experts and lawmakers.