Next personnel: Trump wants to entrust Musk advisors with AI and cryptocurrencies

US President-elect Donald Trump wants to appoint right-wing venture capitalist David Sacks as government representative for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies. Both topics are “crucial to America’s future competitiveness,” Trump said via his online mouthpiece Truth Social. Sacks – a confidant of tech billionaire Elon Musk – has the task of making the USA the clear world market leader in the AI ​​and digital currencies business.

As a government representative, Sacks will “protect free speech online and move us away from the bias and censorship of big tech companies,” Trump wrote. He should also create a legal framework for the crypto industry “so that it can get the clarity it wants and thrive in the US.” Accordingly, Sacks will also head the future president’s advisory committee responsible for science and technology.

Bitcoin investors in party mood since Trump’s election victory

Since Trump’s election victory on November 5th, Bitcoin has risen enormously because investors are hoping for crypto-friendly regulation of the industry. While the oldest and best-known digital currency was still trading at around $70,000 before the election, it temporarily broke the $100,000 threshold for the first time on Thursday night. The party mood in the crypto scene had previously been fueled by Trump’s announcement that he would install digital currency advocate Paul Atkins as head of the powerful US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“David Sacks was a wildly successful entrepreneur and investor for 25 years, building and financing some of Silicon Valley’s biggest icon companies,” Trump wrote. During the early days of the now globally known US payment service provider Paypal, Sacks was the chief executive officer. He later founded the software company Yammer – which programmed a kind of in-house Facebook for companies – and sold it to industry giant Microsoft in 2012 for $1.2 billion. Most recently he also co-hosted a tech podcast.

Trump announced other personnel decisions. The most important one, given the trade conflict with China: David Perdue. Trump wants to make the Republican the new US ambassador to China. The 74-year-old represented the state of Georgia in the US Senate from 2015 to 2021. Before his political career, he held various leadership positions in business, including CEO of Dollar General and Reebok.