(Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he would name former PayPal (NASDAQ:) chief operating officer David Sacks as his “White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar,” another step toward changing U.S. policy.
“He will work on the legal framework so that the cryptocurrency industry has the clarity it has asked for and can thrive in the U.S.,” Trump said in a post on his social media site Truth Social, without mentioning whether “tsar” was an official title.
Cryptocar and other officials in the incoming Trump administration, such as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, along with a newly formed cryptocurrency advisory board, are expected to change U.S. digital currency policy.
Trump technology supporters generally want minimal regulation of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, arguing that Washington will restrict emerging novel sectors with excessive rules.
Elad Gil, an entrepreneur who has invested in companies such as Airbnb and cryptocurrency platform Coinbase (NASDAQ:), called Sacks’ selection “a strong move” in a post on X. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X: “congratulations to czar @DavidSack!”
“The bags will likely have a slight regulatory impact, but not without some guardrails,” Steve Jang, founder of Kindred Ventures, told Reuters. Jang has co-invested with Sacks in both cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence startups.
He predicted that Sacks would prioritize regulating how AI is used in certain critical applications, rather than focusing on regulating the development of AI models themselves. This distinction has been a key point of contention for Silicon Valley investors who have staunchly opposed California’s failed SB 1047 bill, which was intended to regulate the development of the artificial intelligence model.
Trump announced Wednesday that he would nominate prominent Washington lawyer and cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to head the SEC, a move praised by the industry.
Trump – who once called cryptocurrencies a scam – used digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and build up a national stockpile of bitcoin.
on Wednesday evening it topped $100,000 for the first time, a milestone hailed even by skeptics as reaching maturity for digital assets as investors bet that a affable U.S. administration would cement cryptocurrencies’ place in financial markets.
Matthew Dibb, chief investment officer at cryptocurrency asset manager Astronaut Capital, described the news as extremely confident. “David has had a fairly hands-on approach to cryptocurrencies over the years, sometimes holding coins like Solana in his hands. He seems to have a lot more technical and commercial competence in cryptocurrencies than most people think,” Dibb said.
Born in South Africa, Sacks, 52, is the co-founder of the venture capital firm Craft Ventures and an early leader of PayPal, the payment processing company acquired by eBay (NASDAQ:) in 2002.
Sacks is considered a member of the “PayPal mafia” made up of former employees and executives at the digital finance company that includes prominent Trump supporters Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ:) who runs artificial intelligence startup xAI, is a fan of cryptocurrencies and was named by Trump to co-head the novel Department of Government Efficiency. The advisory council on government improvement is nicknamed DOGE, which is the name of the cryptocurrency.
Sacks is also the former CEO of software company Zenefits and founded Yammer, a social network for enterprise users.
He was an early cryptocurrency evangelist. In an interview with CNBC in 2017, he told CNBC that he believed the development of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was revolutionizing the Internet.
“We seem to be witnessing the birth of a novel kind of network. Some people call it a decentralized network or the Internet of money,” he said.
Trump said Sacks will also chair the White House Science and Technology Advisory Council.
