President Donald Trump appointed industry titans including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms Inc., venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison and Nvidia Corp.’s Jensen Huang to a new presidential technology council that will focus on artificial intelligence policy and other science-related issues.
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology will be be chaired by David Sacks, the venture capitalist now serving as Trump’s AI and crypto czar, and White House Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios, according to the White House, which announced the panel’s membership on Wednesday.
The council is the latest marker of the nexus between Silicon Valley and Trump’s second administration as industry leaders have embraced his push to lower regulatory and tax burdens and bolster US standing in cutting-edge fields.
Other executives tapped for the council include Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Dell Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell and Safra Catz, executive vice chair of Oracle. Additional members are expected to be appointed in the near future, according to the White House. Details on when the council will meet were not immediately clear.
Trump has taken interest in establishing what the White House casts as “American dominance” in AI and digital assets. He’s secured billions in commitments from tech leaders to build out AI infrastructure and has committed to policies aimed at unleashing domestic energy production to fuel data centers.
Last week, he unveiled a national blueprint for regulating AI, a bid to lay the groundwork for Congress to create a federal standard for a rapidly developing technology. The president’s outline calls for online safeguards for children, less stringent permitting requirements to reduce the costs of power-hungry data centers and preventing censorship.
The AI drive, though, has emerged as a politically contentious issue ahead of November midterm elections, as voters bristle over the rapid development of data centers in their communities, energy use that’s driving up utility costs, potential job losses from the technology and worries about environmental harm. Tech executives and companies are pouring money into races to elect lawmakers who will be favorable to their industry.
Trump and his predecessors in the White House have created similar advisory committees in the past to weigh in on science and emerging technologies, including during the president’s first term. Still, Washington has struggled to regulate rapidly developing technologies for decades, with tools evolving at a far more rapid pace than legislative action.
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