How David Sacks crashed and burned the White House

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On Monday, The New York Times he said that The White House is proposing that the government review AI models before they are released. For the common man On the edge reader, it seems like a complete change Donald Trumppolicies of. Over the past year, he has become a prominent figure in the ban on industrialization, removing the former president. Joe BidenA major piece of legislation on AI security, lifting export controls for high-end chips, and signing legislation that would have penalized countries for issuing and enforcing AI regulations instead of federal laws. Now, the Trump administration appears to be pulling a 180, seeking government oversight and pre-market surveillance.

But in Washington, the change in White House policy was the result of three major changes. First, the Anthropic Mythos has undermined the national security apparatus, forcing the administration to face a new challenge: the possibility of adversaries using American AI models to attack American public and private institutions. Second, other countries are beginning to implement their own AI laws, possibly in ways that may conflict with the interests of the United States. (And yes, “destroying Big Tech’s data center in a drone attack” and (but we’ll get to that soon.)

And thirdly, David Sacks he was pushed out of his job as an AI and crypto czar, giving Silicon Valley one less chance to implement a better corporate policy, “innovation-at-any-cost” for Trump himself.

The definition of political influence can be squishy and amorphous, especially around Donald Trump, who can take anyone’s phone calls and act on that advice if he feels like it. (Remember when Laura Loomer he had control over the National Security Council?) But what is legally certain is that Sacks, a billionaire venture capitalist and Trump fundraiser in 2024, no longer has the privileges available to him as a special public servant, such as the ability to review public information, speak on behalf of the White House, or have influence on public affairs and organizations.

Instead, the “special civil servant,” who was supposed to spend only 130 days working in the government and somehow ended up staying for a year, disrupted the administration and damaged his relationship with his political colleagues. During Sacks’ tenure, the White House went beyond simply advocating for no legislation. They tried twice to get Congress to enact a moratorium on federal AI legislation, and failed, they tried to use legislation that would give the Trump administration the power to veto states that pass or enforce the rules. But his Valley-esque tactics, to say nothing of his attempts to bolster power over AI policy by undermining existing agencies, have angered Republican and MAGA allies, while alienating Trump’s core base. (In fact, it was so unsuccessful that unnamed White House officials tried to pressure some red states to drop AI laws, saying they were against Trump’s policy, four GOP state legislators spoke on the record The Wall Street Journal on the contrary. Then again, if the plan was to kill the billions, it worked.)

Even Masaka didn’t crash and burn – say nothing by publicly criticizing Donald Trumpa person who does not like to be criticized, for continuing to fight with Iran – the job is also becoming difficult for a freelancer who is maintaining relations with the private sector to work. In recent months, the closure of American AI policy has grown significantly, even more so than Sacks’ pro-innovation 2025, in areas where the lack of legislation would not be irresponsible: national security and national stability.

The big change was the leak of Anthropic’s Mythos, an AI model that was so powerful at detecting cybersecurity threats that the company, whose reputation depends on out-performing its competitors, refused to release it to the public. The possibility of the Mythos version becoming commercially available has rattled the national security apparatus and the financial industry, and attracted the attention of three powerful people in the White House: the Secretary of the Treasury. Scott BessantSecretary of Commerce Howard Lutnickand Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

When He Lives With Wiles met the CEO of Anthropic Darius Amodei in April, it was revealed that not only are they taking the threats seriously, they are now going beyond the Anthropic enemies in the Pentagon, which they had a few months ago, assured Trump that Anthropic is “awakened” and should be banned from government use.

“National security issues like Mythos are hard to deny, and urgent national security issues are not difficult to politicize,” Charlie Bullocka senior researcher at the Institute for Law and AI, said Seaside. “Once the national security forces are involved, it is difficult to challenge or politicize.”

In recent weeks, the government agencies that Sacks criticized are now being given more power. Tuesday, The Department of Commerce has announced that it chose the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) as the organization that would test the deployment of commercial AI models before release, and had already made agreements with xAI, Microsoft, and Google DeepMind. CISI is managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which was founded developed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last yearbut he has started writing technical works.

Other countries are also reshaping their muscles, in a way that the United States cannot directly control. The European Union is currently discussing the revision of the AI ​​Act, and even the EU countries and the European Parliament were unable to reach an agreement in recent negotiationsanyway he does Getting out of these rules will directly affect the way the border AI species are created – and perhaps in a way that contradicts the American trade and natsec.

“(Besent) doesn’t really like white people,” a technology consultant close to the administration said Seaside. In his opinion, EU privacy laws will not hurt American companies, and will inadvertently allow China to grow faster, and there was a history: “We have seen this video in the past when it comes to broadband, where they tried to do the same to American broadband companies. Finally, they only support Huawei.”

Then there are the ruthless geopolitical players who don’t care what Sacks or the American government thinks. Days after the US military bombed Tehran and killed its cleric, Iran attacked two AWS facilities in the United Arab Emirates and randomly destroyed a third data center in Bahrain, causing blackouts across the Middle East and damaging infrastructure. A few weeks later, Iranian media announced this it would target 18 major US technology companies and presence in the region, including AI heavy hitters such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Palantir, and Nvidia, and said that hit the Oracle data center in the UAE. (UAE media later explained that the Oracle building in Dubai was partially damaged by debris that fell from the drone.)

“Even though there’s a lot of politics around here in the United States, right Maine is (trying to) stop themand (Republican Florida Gov. Ron) DeSantis it is about stopping themas far as the world is concerned, this is very important,” a technical policy advisor near the administration told me. two about Amazon’s data centers, because they know how important they are. ” The damage to the AWS data center, which operates throughout the Middle East, is so severe that even if the war ends now, it may take “several months” resuming all operations, according to the company.

That doesn’t mean, however, that David Sacks has them no Influence in the Trump administration: He has a direct cell of Trump, and he is still a big billionaire, which is better knowledge in the eyes of Trump than any kind of expertise. Atlantic Ocean‘s George Packer in the near future great thing about Sacksshowing his plutocratic persistence. One cannot really stop the master of the universe from trying to change on a regular basis. But even when it comes to the rich guys Trump likes, Masaka can’t quite stack up. Last week, Trump held a state party King Charles IIItour of the United States. A guest list was included Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioffcorporate leadership from Meta and Alphabet – and no Masaka, was present an old state party held at Windsor Castle in the United Kingdom last year, he is still in the White House.

When I asked a DC political insider at the dinner if Sacks had been invited, the answer was very positive: “How could he be? He’s not a White House insider.”