What does Trump’s AI czar want?

This summer, President Donald Trump signed a new industry-friendly agreement “Genius Act” for cryptocurrency, he postponed to White House “AI and cryptocurrency czar” David Sacks to explain why crypto companies need a straightforward regulatory framework.

When Trump issued an executive order this month limits the options of states Regulating artificial intelligence was Sacks back at his sideand stressed that the government must avoid Silicon Valley if the US wants to beat China in the race for superintelligence.

Sacks has had a meteoric rise and has become Trump's go-to guy on all things technology.

Sacks was an early friend of technology entrepreneur Peter Thiel. The two met at Stanford, combined their conservative leanings and wrote together The myth of diversitya polemic against political correctness and campus liberalism. He then became part of Thiel and Elon Musk's “PayPal Mafia“founded a company that sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion and founded a venture capital firm with large stakes in SpaceX and xAI.

Explained today Co-host Noel King spoke with Washington Post tech culture reporter Nitasha Tiku about how Sacks went from Silicon Valley investor to DC heavyweight.

Below is an excerpt from their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There's a lot more in the full podcast, so listen Explained today Wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, PandoraAnd Spotify.

How do most people know about David Sacks?

David Sacks has one very popular tech podcast, All inwhich he moderates together with three of his “best”. They are all investors, and one of the other co-hosts was also part of the War Room as Elon [was] Takeover. And they embraced many of his ideas: fire your trust and safety department, eliminate DEI, and fight for free speech. The idea is that you get an unfiltered, candid look from people who are in the game, “in the arena,” as they like to say on the podcast.

But increasingly they began to talk about politics, and David was initially the conservative opponent. His co-hosts were more like centrist Democrats. And the evolution of their worldview and their political stance is pretty close to what we see in the world Tech supporter of Trump's second term.

What do we learn from? All in about David Sacks' politics?

We learn that he is conservative. He has also been politically active in previous election cycles, donating to various candidates. It was given to Hillary Clinton.

He donates primarily to Republicans. He spoke out against it the January 6th uprising. He actually supported Ron DeSantis. He asked his buddy Elon to host Twitter Spaces with DeSantis back when they still called it Twitter, if you remember. It was a Audio disaster. And he held a fundraiser for Vivek Ramaswamy.

In addition, all the Republican candidates and Dean Phillips were there All in Podcast. And we saw him getting closer and closer to us the MAGA right.

How did Trump and Sacks get involved?

Sacks hosted one Fundraiser for Trump in June 2024 at his home in San Francisco. And it seems like this dinner really cemented the deal. There were a lot of crypto entrepreneurs and Trump was just excited. Sacks has one very nice home on Billionaire's Row in San Francisco. If Trump came on All in Podcast Afterwards he said, “I love David’s house.” Sacks is very respectful towards him.

They talked about what was happening with the crypto industry in a way that really resonated with Trump. They talked about being persecuted by SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, how difficult it has been for crypto entrepreneurs to bank, and what the Trump administration could do for them and this enabling technology. And remember, Trump has done this before called crypto a scam.

We have seen very rapid development since the inauguration. There's another quote in this episode where Trump talks about how Sacks introduced him to all the tech geniuses. This is ultimately the beginning of this faction of the tech industry helping to put Trump in the White House for a second term.

David Sacks comes from outside the Washington, DC establishment to take on a role in the Trump White House. What is he doing for Trump now and how serious is this job?

We weren't sure how serious it would be. His title is the White House AI and Crypto Czar. Trump and Sacks have a very close and mutually respectful relationship, and he ultimately played an extremely crucial role in both of these technologies for which he was held responsible.

We have all witnessed the power of the AI ​​industry through this post-ChatGPT boom. So ultimately it has a lot of geopolitical significance for how we think about national security in China. All of this is related to GPUs and chips needed by companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, chips made by Nvidia, a trillion dollar company. So his level of popularity is much higher than before.

States want to regulate AI. Governors want legislation to protect people from artificial intelligence. The Trump administration says, “No, you can’t.” Where do you think David Sacks fits into the regulation that says, “States, you can’t legislate around AI?”

He played a very important role in this this implementing regulationdid a lot of work behind the scenes, talking to the populist wing of the Republican Party, trying to get them on board, and stressing that it would not impact the laws that would keep their voters safe. They tried to make it clear: We don't want to stop you from protecting young people in your district or whatever. We only want laws that are not burdensome and do not slow down the development of the AI ​​industry.

And that's very consistent with what you're hearing from the VC people who worked in the Trump administration, who were already focused on technology when they took office. It was like this: We want rules of the road for crypto and we don't want barriers to AI. This executive order definitely reflects their interest in ensuring that there is not a patchwork of laws that a startup must adhere to.

So there is a lot at stake here. David Sacks is a rich man with strong ties to the White House, and he doesn't want there to be any AI regulation. On the other hand, there are Americans who are worried about AI. Which side of this do you think will win in the end?

Just in the last few months, we've seen this particular issue really become a contentious issue because parents who read these stories about it are becoming increasingly concerned Chatbots encourage teenagers to die by suicide or manipulate them in a way that seems extremely unpleasant when reading the chats. And at the same time there are people push back in an organized manner against more data centers in their neighborhood and against the idea that we are literally going to change the landscape of the country and other countries to advance this technology that CEOs say will do this put everyone out of work.

Maybe you could have prevailed in the industry before the chatbot pushback. And I think the industry can still win. And that's what I think [there’s some] If you have the ability to make small exceptions for the safety of children, for kitchen table issues, or for things that just sound awfully bad, like encouraging a child to commit suicide, you might be able to get some restrictions on that. But what will really influence the behavior of the tech industry is controlling its ability to grow.

I'm not saying it's pointless. I think paying attention to these issues could hopefully and potentially change the outcome to what voters want, what people want. But I think we should pay attention to the difference between some of these small protections that nominally appear to be protecting people or creating a safe space for them, and some of the larger, more existential factors.