As David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s “AI whisperer,” urged the White House to take a light-touch approach to AI regulation, the tech tycoon’s venture capital firm launched a new round of investments in AI startups that stood to benefit from the looser rules.
Since Sacks left his White House role in March — and concerns have mounted over AI’s potential harms — his firm, Craft Ventures, has continued pumping money into AI startups, including through a gargantuan new $1 billion fund. Sacks was not required to divest from the firm while serving in the Trump administration.
“These ongoing new investments underscore how Sacks is not just a generalized AI industry enthusiast with the ear of the president, but an active investor,” said Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a watchdog group that tracks conflicts of interest in Washington. Sacks’ bets rely on a world in which AI is “unfettered by general consumer or AI-specific safety regulation,” Hauser added.
Sacks is a central player in the unfolding fight in Washington over AI safety, which has ramped up in recent weeks after a former Anthropic AI researcher issued a series of doomsday predictions about the existential threats of the technology. A close confidant of the president, Sacks has swayed Trump to take a more laissez-faire approach to AI safety, rankling the president’s more AI-cautious advisors.
In May, Sacks reportedly persuaded Trump to abandon an executive order which would have required extensive government review of AI models, even though it had buy-in from the industry. He’s since become one of the loudest voices resisting calls for new government regulation of AI.
“The bottom line is that when it comes to AI safety, we need the companies themselves to internalize this sense of responsibility,” Sacks told Fox News this month, shortly after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made a public call to slow the pace of AI development.
Trump appointed Sacks, a longtime tech investor, as his AI and crypto czar just weeks after his 2024 reelection. While serving in the administration, Sacks and his venture capital firm received broad ethics waivers to keep tech investments as they crafted policy that directly benefited Silicon Valley, though Sacks was forced to divest from some crypto and AI holdings.
In March, Sacks departed from his official position with the administration, releasing him from government ethics obligations. He now serves as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, an advisory board to the president, and has maintained a close relationship with Trump.
Sacks’ venture capital firm has continued betting on a slate of AI startups over the past six months. In August, the firm began raising its first fund since Sacks departed his government role, as The Information reported, targeting $1 billion.
Sacks’ investments put him on a clear side of a growing conflict within the AI industry itself. As a venture capitalist, he is gambling on the startups competing with established frontier labs like Anthropic and OpenAI, beyond the AI boom generally. That faction relies on “open weight” AI models, which are made publicly available, in contrast to the proprietary models used by Anthropic and OpenAI.
While the frontier labs have in different ways emphasized AI safety — which some believe is a cynical ploy to secure market dominance — wildcat AI firms like the ones Craft Ventures is backing tend to reject any government intervention at all, Hauser said. Proponents like Sacks and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg invoke the need for innovation and decentralization to justify a hands-off approach by regulators.
Craft Ventures has played a central role in bankrolling this ecosystem. The firm’s portfolio includes dozens of AI startups relying on open-weight models, most of which Sacks was granted waivers to retain investments in while serving in the White House. Since his departure, Craft Ventures has only doubled down on its bets.
Craft Ventures recently participated in a seed funding round for Noetive, a startup that bills itself as an AI lab working on supply chain logistics; the investment came after the firm participated in an additional funding round for Israeli “cloud and AI security” firm Upwind
Other recent Craft Ventures AI investments include image generator ComfyUI, Israeli firm Unframe, and cybersecurity firm Horizon3.