United States President-elect Donald Trump has named former PayPal operating chief and now podcaster David Sacks as his lead policy adviser on artificial intelligence and crypto.
“David O. Sacks will be the ‘White House A.I. & Crypto Czar,’ Trump wrote in a Dec. 6 post on his social media platform Truth Social — two areas he called “critical to the future of American competitiveness.”
“He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the U.S.,” Trump added.
Part of Sacks’ role will also be to “safeguard” online speech and “steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship,” Trump wrote.
He added Sacks will also lead the Presidential Council of Advisors for Science and Technology.
Sacks was an early executive of the payment giant PayPal and co-founded the business social network platform Yammer, which Microsoft bought for $1.2 billion in 2012. He is now best known for co-hosting the business-focused All In podcast and co-founding the venture capital firm Craft Ventures.
Trump’s appointment of Sacks shows the president-elect’s team is rewarding the high-profile business leaders who supported his campaign. Sacks has been a major Trump backer this year, hosting a fundraiser for the then-Republican candidate, which raised $12 million.
Related: How Trump’s victory has divided the crypto community
Trump strongly embraced the crypto industry in his campaign with promises to make the US “the world capital of crypto,” which in turn saw him garner millions of dollars in backing from industry executives.
He’s appointed other pro-crypto backers like Elon Musk into advisory roles and, on Dec. 4, picked the pro-crypto Paul Atkins to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, which industry executives hope will stem the agency’s enforcement against crypto.
Meanwhile, a memecoin promoted by Sacks earlier this year that features his name has jumped 16,000% to a new high in the hours after Trump’s post after it had laid mostly dormant since March.
Magazine: Crypto has 4 years to grow so big ‘no one can shut it down’ — Kain Warwick, Infinex