Trump hands new White House role to long-time Ukraine critic
US President-elect Donald Trump has tapped venture capitalist David Sacks to serve as AI and Crypto Czar in his future administration. The billionaire investor has been a vocal critic of Washington’s handling of the Ukraine crisis.
Sacks will focus on “making America the clear global leader in both areas,” Trump said in his announcement on Thursday. “He will safeguard free speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.”
Trump touted his pick’s extensive experience in the tech industry, reminding readers that Sacks was part of the ‘PayPal Mafia’ – a group of founding employees of the online payments giant who went on to become influential Silicon Valley players, such as Elon Musk.
The investor, who also runs a popular podcast, endorsed Trump’s campaign for president in June. Sacks identified four key reasons for his choice, including the Republican’s foreign policy, particularly his stated intention to end the Ukraine conflict. The hostilities with Russia are President Joe Biden’s “biggest blunder by far” he explained at the time.
”As the war of attrition grinds on, the Ukrainians face ever-mounting casualties and infrastructure damage,” Sacks warned, adding that Biden has only been escalating the situation. He said that what the Democratic Party was offering to voters was “limited to fighting the proxy war to the last Ukrainian, or fighting Russia ourselves.”
Sacks has called the Ukraine conflict a “war of lies”, arguing that the American people were being deceived by their government about its origins, the feasibility of Kiev’s victory or lack thereof, and the damage it has caused to the West’s international standing.
