President-elect Donald Trump will have a new crypto and AI “emperor” in former PayPal chief operating officer David Sachs.
Trump announced Sacks' appointment Thursday in a post on Trump's social networking platform, TruthSocial. “[Sacks] We will be working on the legal framework. [sic] “The industry has the transparency it has been seeking and can thrive in the United States,” he wrote.
Sachs, a member of the so-called “PayPal Mafia,'' is the co-founder of Yammer, an internal communications tool that Microsoft acquired for $1.2 billion in 2012. He's also behind Craft Ventures, a venture capital fund that backs startups like SpaceX. Reddit, clickup.
In a 2017 interview with CNBC, Sachs said cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum would fulfill PayPal's “original vision” of building a “database of money” where payments never leave the system. He said he believed it.
What's more, Sachs' views on AI and AI policymaking are less clear, but his policies are generally decidedly right-leaning and deregulatory, which could mean a lighter touch than the outgoing Biden administration would prefer. There is enough sex.