A new report from the New York Times digs into the financial disclosures of President Trump’s AI and crypto czar, PayPal Mafia founding member David Sacks, and finds ample reason to doubt that he could possibly advise anyone, let alone the president, on AI and crypto impartially.
One telling detail in the Times’ piece is that Sacks or his venture capital firm Craft Ventures have 438 software or hardware company investments involving companies that aren’t necessarily AI companies, but pitch themselves as AI companies anyway, or have AI in their names. This is a headache-inducing factoid because over the past two years, seemingly every tech startup has pivoted to AI. In fact, companies now bend the definition of “AI” until it breaks to stay relevant.
So the question isn’t just whether or not Sacks necessarily profits from the questionable investments in the Times report. He’s a billionaire podcaster whose show, “All-In,” is a bunch of perceived insider tech bros yukking it up about politics and the markets. The presence of such a guy—who everyone knows has a massive tech-based portfolio of investments—totally guarantees the perception that public policy is being shaped by self-dealing in the tech world, which in turn distorts common sense.
At any rate, it’s hard to give him the benefit of the doubt like this, because there do appear to be conflicts. (A spokesperson denied this to the Times, for the record.)
The Times claims that Sacks’ stake in AI companies—apparently even ones that he retains after unloading some of his investments for ethical reasons—have gone up in value or stand to go up in value due to his recommended policies. His portfolio, and the portfolio of his company still have “708 tech investments,” the Times says, along with “449 stakes in companies with ties to artificial intelligence,” plus the aforementioned 438 “software or hardware” companies that just happen to love AI.
On some level, it feels absurd to talk about this right now. Anti-corruption protesters picketed an event where Trump spoke at a dinner full of crypto fans who bought a total of $148 Million in Trump’s own cryptocurrency in order to be allowed to attend. There have been corruption accusations over Trump’s questionable pardon of Changpeng “CZ” Zhao while he still appears to be engaging in the practices that got him convicted. Trump has tried to swat away at least one question from the press about this, and has done so with a certain lack of grace, even for Trump.
But even with more than the usual ambient chatter about corruption happening, it’s still worth pointing out that if someone is rich, and gets richer from owning stakes in companies, then unless you happen to really like that person, they’ll come across as untrustworthy if they are in any way in charge of government policy while all that wealth accumulation happens. (And this is true of Nancy Pelosi and her publicly-disclosed portfolio as well.)
For my money, the marquee example from the Times piece is Sack’s stake in Anduril Industries, which makes AI-powered night vision goggles.
Anduril Industries is part of the Craft Ventures portfolio, and even has its own page on the company’s website. Also, the Trump A.I. Action Plan—which Sacks masterminded—pushes for U.S.-based AI companies to contract with the Pentagon. In September, Anduril announced that the Pentagon was paying it $159 million to design prototypes for the government. “This award represents the largest effort of its kind to equip every soldier with superhuman perception and decision-making capabilities—fusing the best of night vision, augmented reality, and AI into a single system,” Anduril’s announcement says.
This is ostensibly okay, however, because as an Anduril spokesperson named Shannon Prior told the Times, Anduril got the contract not because Sacks has a stake in it, but because company founder Palmer Luckey, is “the world’s best virtual reality headset designer,” and contracting with Anduril was an “obvious idea.” Plus Anduril had already been in talks with the Army before the AI Action Plan was rolled out, Prior says.
When it comes to taking solace in these excuses, your mileage may vary. When you zoom out, it looks like this: As an advisor, Trump hired a venture capitalist who held a $500,000-per-couple dinner for him last year in San Francisco. It turns out that guy has a stake in a company that makes AI night vision goggles. When he writes you an AI action plan calling for AI in the military, and your Pentagon ends up contracting with that very company, that’s just sensible government policy. After all, the military needs AI-powered night vision goggles, doesn’t it?
In a reality where David Sacks works for Donald Trump’s White House, of course the government thinks the military needs that. But it’s easy to imagine another reality where the White House AI and crypto czar is someone else, or—gasp—there is no AI and crypto czar. In this reality, perhaps, “Hey wait, does it serve the public’s interest to pay $159 million in an attempt to shoehorn AI into night vision goggles?” is a question that at least gets asked.
Read the full article here
