Donald Trump has chosen a crypto bull to advise him on AI and crypto policy. On Thursday night, the president-elect Participated in Truth Social He shared that he has appointed former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sachs as the “White House AI and Cryptocurrency Czar.” President Trump said Sacks will also chair the President’s Council of Science and Technology Advisers.
“David will guide the administration’s policy in artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, two areas critical to America’s future competitiveness. Trump wrote, adding that Sacks will “defend free speech online and keep us away from Big Tech’s bigotry and censorship.”
As an appointee to one of the president’s advisory committees, Mr. Sachs does not have to go through the normal Senate confirmation process required for selecting cabinet members or heads of federal agencies. Mr. Sachs has no previous government experience. Instead, Trump emphasized his business credentials, pointing to his tenure at PayPal, which Sachs founded in 2008 and Microsoft acquired for $1.2 billion in 2012, and later Yammer. Sachs is also a close ally of Elon Musk, and provided some of the funding Musk used to buy Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. Sachs has widely advocated for smaller government and less regulation, but also pushed for intervention from the Biden administration during Silicon Valley. Valley Bank went bankrupt in 2023.
“Where’s Powell? Where’s Yellen?” Sachs tweeted before regulators moved to fully protect SVB’s deposits. “Stop this crisis now. We announce that all depositors are safe. We will place SVB in the top 4 banks. If we do not do this before opening on Monday, the infection will spread and the crisis will spread.”
together paul atkinsSachs, chosen by President Trump to head the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is likely to reshape U.S. policy on cryptocurrencies and AI. Under the Biden administration, the federal government sought to regulate the cryptocurrency industry. But Sachs is a vocal supporter of the industry. He is also a major investor in other crypto-related ventures such as Solana and Multicoin Capital.
As for Trump, appointing Sachs to his advisory board shows how his stance on cryptocurrencies has changed. as Recently, 2021He said he believed Bitcoin “looks like a scam” and advocated for “very high” government regulation of Bitcoin. That was before the cryptocurrency industry invested $131 million The 2024 election will elect 274 pro-crypto candidates to the House of Representatives and 20 candidates to the Senate. During his campaign, Trump promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet.”
