An lawyer for David Sacks referred to as a Sunday story by the New York Instances a “hit piece” and a “willful misunderstanding” of the tech mogul’s particular authorities worker standing because the Trump Administration’s AI and crypto adviser, saying many particulars of the roughly 4,000-word article, with 5 bylines and months of reporting behind it, are simply debunked.
Sacks posted a replica of the four-page letter despatched from his Virginia-based attorneys to the Instances’ basic counsel Sunday on X.
“5 months in the past, 5 New York Instances reporters have been dispatched to create a narrative about my supposed conflicts of curiosity working because the White Home AI & Crypto Czar,” Sacks wrote in his put up. “Each time we might show an accusation false, NYT pivoted to the following allegation. That is why the story has dragged on for 5 months.”
The Instances alleges Sacks helped craft the White Home’s new A.I. insurance policies whereas persevering with to work as a significant Silicon Valley investor. As a “particular authorities worker,” an unpaid function permitted to keep up sure non-public enterprise pursuits, the paper wrote that Sacks supplied vital White Home entry to tech executives and pushed for looser A.I. rules that positioned main chipmakers like Nvidia to probably achieve as much as $200 billion in new international gross sales.
The Instances overview reveals Sacks holds 708 tech investments, together with 449 in firms tied to A.I., lots of which may gain advantage from the insurance policies he helps.
“His public ethics filings, that are based mostly on self-reported info, don’t disclose the worth of these remaining stakes in crypto and A.I.-related firms,” the Instances wrote. “Additionally they omit when he offered property he mentioned he would divest, making it tough to find out whether or not his authorities service has netted him income.”
The story included an announcement from a Sacks spokeswoman in addition to White Home spokeswoman Liz Huston, who mentioned he addressed potential conflicts earlier than beginning the place and introduced insights that have been “a useful asset for President Trump’s agenda of cementing American know-how dominance.”
Sacks was a part of the consortium of younger traders, together with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who began PayPal and different profitable tech corporations. Trump requested Sacks to affix his administration after the 2024 election, and he agreed – so long as he was in a position to proceed to take part in sure ongoing ventures like Craft.
Sacks’ attorneys say his divestments truly price his private backside line. Moreover private monetary advantages for his tech and crypto ventures, the Instances story urged that Sacks’ insurance policies, like promoting American-made AI chips internationally, have offered nationwide safety dangers.
Sacks’s attorneys accused the Instances of constructing the piece on a elementary misunderstanding of Sacks’s function as a particular authorities worker, a class particularly designed by Congress to deliver private-sector consultants into authorities. The lawyer says the Instances repeatedly shifted theories as earlier claims fell aside, framing the reporting as a sample of “non-scandal to non-scandal.”
The letter additionally rejects any suggestion of an improper relationship between Sacks and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang after the Instances eliminated a reference to a dinner between the 2 that by no means occurred.
The letter additional disputes the Instances’s claims about Sacks’ extremely profitable “All-In” Podcast, saying Sacks forfeited any income tied to A.I. or crypto firms, and that the Instances falsely implied the podcast pursued monetary achieve from internet hosting an A.I. Summit.
The response accuses the Instances of selectively downplaying comparable or extra vital conflicts involving Democratic SGEs, together with former Biden adviser Anita Dunn and former State Division official Huma Abedin. The letter concludes by urging the Instances to desert the story, asserting that months of scrutiny produced no proof of wrongdoing and that the reporting is pushed by a need to discredit Sacks politically reasonably than by precise findings of battle.
