Meet David Sacks, member of the ‘PayPal Mafia’ and Trump crypto czar

• Sacks will be Trump’s crypto and AI czar, boosting Silicon Valley’s place in the administration.
• From his days at Stanford and PayPal, he’s close with tech leaders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
• Here’s the lowdown on Sacks’ personal history, business ventures, and political rise.

Venture capitalist David Sacks is joining the ranks of tech executives who will staff President-elect Donald Trump’s White House. He will serve as the artificial intelligence and crypto czar, further cementing Silicon Valley’s role in the administration.

Here’s a look at Sacks’ personal history, business career, and political machinations.

A representative for Sacks’ company, Craft Ventures, did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

Sacks was born in South Africa and attended Stanford University, where he met conservative billionaire Peter Thiel.

Sacks was born in Cape Town, South Africa on May 25, 1972. His family immigrated to Tennessee when he was five. He attended Stanford University, where he met and befriended Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire and so-called conservative kingmaker. After graduating from Stanford, Sacks attended law school at the University of Chicago.

Though Sacks has only recently gained recognition in national political circles, he’s been involved with conservative causes since his undergraduate days in the early 1990s. He served as editor-in-chief for the Stanford Review, a libertarian newspaper that Thiel founded. The two friends also co-authored a book, “The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and Political Intolerance on Campus.” In it, they argue against anti-Western “zealotry” and downplay the seriousness of date rape, saying that it is merely “belated regret” from the woman. In 2016, both Sacks and Thiel apologized for parts of the book.

“It does not represent who I am today or what I believe today,” Sacks said at the time. “I’m embarrassed by some of my former views and regret writing them.”

After graduating, Sacks became a member of the famed ‘PayPal Mafia.’

Sacks briefly worked as a management consultant at McKinsey before leaving to make his name in the tech world. In 1999, he joined Confinity, a startup Thiel co-founded that eventually became PayPal. Sacks became the company’s chief operating officer and stayed in the role between 1999 and 2002, when it was bought by eBay. Now, Sacks is considered a member of the elite “PayPal Mafia,” along with Thiel, Elon Musk, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

Sacks became close to Musk during their time at PayPal and the two remain friends. He encouraged the Tesla CEO to get more involved in Republican politics, the Times reported.

Sacks has founded several companies and invested in Musk’s business ventures.

After leaving PayPal, Sacks pursued a brief stint in Hollywood and produced Thank You for Smoking, a 2005 satirical film that was nominated for a Golden Globe. He soon swung back to the tech world, though, and founded workplace communications company Yammer in 2008. Microsoft bought the company for $1.2 billion in 2012, and by 2017 Sacks co-founded Craft, the venture capital firm where he still works.

In recent years, he’s invested in various companies, including Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, Thiel’s Palantir, and Musk’s SpaceX.

Though Sacks has supported various politicians, including Hillary Clinton, he’s now firmly in Trump’s orbit.

Sacks espouses many of his political views on “All-In,” the podcast he launched in 2020 and co-hosts. In June, Trump sat for a nearly 90-minute interview on the show, which is particularly popular among conservatives in Silicon Valley. The venture capitalist is also active on X, where he frequently posts political commentary.

Despite his newfound prominence in the national conservative ecosystem, Sacks has been somewhat inconsistent with his political donations. He’s given money to Sen. Mitt Romney, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Sacks is also among the tech leaders close to Vice President-elect JD Vance.

On January 8, 2021, Sack said on an episode of his podcast that Trump was “clearly” responsible for the January 6 riot and had “disqualified himself from being a candidate at the national level.” Come the 2024 general election, though, Sacks was all in on Trump, even hosting a fundraiser for the campaign at his San Francisco home. Tickets sold for as much as $300,000 per person and the event raised $12 more than million. Later that month, Sacks published a 23-paragraph-long X post about why he was voting for Trump, and by July he’d snagged a speaking spot at the Republican National Convention.

Sacks will serve as the crypto and AI czar in Trump’s second term.

On December 5, Trump announced that Sacks will serve as his AI and crypto czar, to the delight of some Silicon Valley execs. Musk congratulated Sacks in a post on X.

“David will focus on making America the clear global leader in both areas,” Trump wrote on Truth Social announcing his pick. “He will safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.”

In the new role, Sacks will likely guide the deregulation of the crypto industry that Trump promised on the campaign trail and give industry leaders a direct line to the White House, per Bloomberg. He could also serve as a liaison with Congress and key regulatory industries like the Securities and Exchange Commission. Sacks will head a council of advisors on science and technology, which the White House said will be comprised of industry actors, academics, and people from non-profit organizations.

As a special government employee, Sacks won’t have to divest or publicly disclose his assets, but will have to recuse himself from conversations that could impact his holdings. He is permitted to work up to 130 days annually, with or without pay. Sacks won’t have to go through confirmation hearings, and he won’t have the direct power that formal offices offer. Representatives from Craft Ventures, his VC firm, said he’ll stay at the company.

Sacks is the latest in a string of Silicon Valley and Wall Street leaders to join the Trump administration. Trump’s appointments of Sacks and others have sparked a cryptocurrency boom.