March 7, 2025 • 15 mins
White House AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks discusses the bitcoin reserve and Trump's executive order. He speaks with Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde and Jackie Davalos.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
What's happening in the world of crypto, though, because so
much to delve into when it comes to the latest
executive order.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
As many anticipate that.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Such regulations will become more pro crypto, and we see
that executive order signed last night with a reserve for bitcoin,
we're now pleased to be welcoming to our TV and
radio audiences around the world. Someone who can dive into
this exact executive order. We bring in the White House
AI and cryptos are David Sachs.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
It's busy.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
You're about to expect yet more people coming to the
White House from the cryptosphere. Remind the American public and
investors why you need a bitcoin reserve at all?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Well, good to be here, I mean, the reason why
we need a bitcoin reserve is that the federal government
already owns some. In fact, it obtained around four hundred
thousand bitcoin over the past decade through criminal and civil
forfeitures and seizures, and so the government has to have
a strategy for how it deals with this. In the past,
the strategy has been simply to sell it in an
(01:07):
ad hoc way, almost willy nilly and that cost American
taxpayer something like seventeen billion dollars in lost value. So
we want to have a long term strategy to maximize
the value of these holdings. We've decided that that bitcoin
is scarce, it's valuable, and that is strategic for the
United States to hold on to.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
This as a long term reserve asset.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
So that's the plan with the two hundred thousand bitcoin
that we believe are in the possession of the federal government.
I say we believe because no one really knows for
sure because we never had a proper audit. So that's
one of the first things that this executive order provides
that we're going to do a full government wide audit
to find out what digital assets we actually have so
they can be safeguarded and moved into a strategy that
(01:46):
maximizes their long term value.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And then there's the stockpile.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Talk to us about the nuance there and why you
need to stockpile for old coins and how you're treating
them differently.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, the idea there is again we're going to figure
out what do we actually have on the federal balot sheet,
and we're going to move those Like you said, all
coins are digital assets other than bitcoin into a stockpile
for safekeeping. The difference there is that the Secretary of
the Treasury will exercise responsible stewardship over those assets, and
(02:17):
he has the discretion to rebalance the portfolio or to
sell items in that portfolio. But that's not true for bitcoin.
The bitcoin we want to keep long term, So there's
a difference there in objective. With the reserve, the goal
is long term preservation. With the stockpile, the goal is
responsible stewardship the portfolio management.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
In essence, David, the executive order also tasks Secretary Lutnik
Investment with finding budget neutral ways that won't cost the
taxpayer to add to that reserve. What qualifies as budget neutral?
Can you give us some examples of how that would
actually work well?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Budget neutral this means it won't cost the tax or anything,
It won't increase the deficit, it won't increase the debt.
So that's basically the constraints on what they can do.
If they can figure out creative ways to add to
the stock to the reserve of bitcoin, they're allowed to
accumulate more bitcoin, but again it cannot impose any burden
on the federal deficit, debt or the taxpayer.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
So that's the rule.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Now you can ask the question, well, how are they
going to do that? And I think that's sort of
up to them if they can figure out creative strategies
that they believe are in the long term insto the country.
They now have the authorization to develop those strategies.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Do you think using savings that come from DOZE, for example,
qualify is something that would be budget neutral?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
That's a good question. I don't know the answer to
that question.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I think that that's something that I have to be
assessed by probably the Office of Management of Budget. I
think that since DOZE is cutting the deficit that and
we'd want to seek a way to rescind those appropriations,
it probably would not count.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
But you probably have to ask the O and B
that when you talk about the stewardship, particularly the stockpile,
could you be seeing things like staking lending. Is there
going to be other ways to maximize the volume there?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
I mean, it's a good question.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I mean, you know, I think that the idea of
this executive order is to create the mandate. Right, so
first of all, we're going to move these digital assets
from wherever they are all over the government. We're going
to find out what they are. First of all, we're
going to do the account and we're going to do
the audit. Then we're going to move them into a
separate account for safekeeping. And then the Sectuary of the
Treasury and his team will be able to exercise portfolio
management and long term and responsible stewardship.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
And yes, that could.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Include staking, it could include rebalancing, it could include sales.
These are all options that they can pursue if the
Sectary of the Treasury believes that these are in the
long term interests of the American people.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Just going into what's in the holding of the US government.
Going back to what President Trump mentioned over the weekend
talking of Ripple Solana, other alternative coins that people are
wondering whether they're going to be included in stot Paul,
will they Does the US own them? Why mention them
by the president?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well, the President just mentioned the top five cryptocurrencies by
market cap, So I think people are just reading into
this a little bit too much. He just mentioned the
top five In terms of what we'll actually have.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Again, we have to do the accounting.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
We're not sure at sitting here today whether the federal
government owns any of these alternative cryptocurrencies. We know it
owns bitcoin. I believe it owns some ethereum. I'm not
sure about the other ones. This is why we have
to do the accounting. Is that, to be honest, no
one's been able to give us a straight answer yet
in terms of what the federal government owns. And this
is part of the problem, is that we've never really
had a digital asset strategy before, and this is why
(05:37):
we've missed out on accumulating a lot of value for
the American people.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
David, you mentioned earlier that you know you don't have
any additional cryptocurrency assets and where you've divested from your
interests there. However, Secretary Lutnik in July mentioned that he
had quote shed load of bitcoin. Do you think it's
important for these stewards of the Reserve and the stockpile
(06:06):
to divest from their cryptocurrency interests?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Do you know if they've done so already.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I can't speak to a situation.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
You know, every member of the administration has to go
through the same ethics process and the same conflict of
interest process that I've gone through. So I'll let him
speak to his own situation, I can to say that
in my case, I divested or sold all the cryptocurrency
that I own prior to the start of the administration,
so there's no conflict in my case, I just want
to have the right innovation policies for the United States.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Do you think it's important, though, to just not have
that appearance of a conflict of interest?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
I mean, look, we're all subject to eighteen USC.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Two eight.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
These are the conflict of interest provisions. Every member the
administration is subject to that. But I'm not going to
speak to anyone's situation, so we all are governed by
the same conflict of interest rules. In my case, I
choasted to divest everything. To make it simple, you should
ask every other member of the administration what their situation is.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
How about the president, because I think here in lies
some of the issues for those who are on the
outside of crypto looking in and suddenly feel that the
US president has an exposure to mean coins or Solana.
How do you give the confidence to the US investor
base and indeed US population that this is totally legit.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Well, honestly, I think you're kind of making something up there.
I mean, how do you know that he has exposure
to Salona. Is that's something you just came up with.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, ultimately, when we think about the mean coin exposure
in particular, and people trying to understand for what reason
we have a trump coin from Milan your coin, is
there a clearer way that the US president can disassociate
himself from any event upside when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Well, I think he's already spoke to the trump coin,
and I think that that is a collectible. The SEC
said it's a collectible. Collectibles have no intrinsic value, they're
not security. Is there in a different category, And I
think as long as you issue at meme coin and
disclaim that there's no intrinsic value, it can just be
a collectible. So that is a different category I think
than what we're talking about here with cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
What do you make some of the market reaction?
Speaker 5 (08:12):
I mean, clearly Bitcoin down later earlier today on the
back of just not really getting what they were hoping for.
You know, if the government is not going to buy
additional crypto, then what's really the benefit. But can you
say for sure that the administration is not open to
using taxpayer dollars in the future. Is that completely off
(08:34):
the table according to this EO, it is.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
We've said that this will not cost taxpayers a dime.
So we've been very clear in this executive Order that
we will not use taxpayer funds to basically accumulate more
crypto unless it can be done in a completely budget
neutral way. No increase in the death st no increase
in the debt, no use of taxpayer funds, no burden
on the taxpayer. We've been very clear in this Executive
(08:58):
Order about that.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
David, Let's move on to artificial intelligence, where you're also
weighing in on policy there. The Biden Executive Order was
repealed in January. What is in the works currently that
you can share about how that's looking and who's involved.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So the president is week one executive order on AI
that rescinded the Biden EO. By the way, that was
a very burdensome executive order that Biden had passed, those
over one hundred pages of burn some regulations on AI companies.
The whole industry hated it. He rescinded that, and he
tasked three people to basically evaluate a new and create
a new AI action plan and those people are the
(09:37):
head of the Office of Science Technology Policy, the now
Security Advisor, myself, and so we're currently working on that
plan and we'll have more information for you about that
once we're ready to present.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
How confident are you at this moment around AI leadership
here in the United States that thick and fast the
news coming out of China, for example, of the latest
models that are incredibly powerful with less data and ultimately
more efficient. How you exercising the view that AI can
be still a leader for the United States and not
losing its leadership versus China.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Well, I'm confident in American leadership, but we can't be
complacent about it. I mean, it's very clear that China
is going to be very, very competitive. Something like roughly
half of the AI researchers in the world are from China.
They are very good at math and science, and you've
seen with the launch of deep Seek that they're very good.
They're very good AI software companies. So this is going
to be a very competitive race, and we have to
(10:31):
win that race. But we can't be complacent about that
in any way. It's going to be a very tough
competition here.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
There's actually reporting from other news sources that maybe deep
seat would be bad from apps here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Do you think that's appropriate.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
It's pretty mature for me to comment on something like that.
If the administration announces a policy on that, then I'll
comment on it.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Then let's talk about some of the other voices inside
the White House as of late that could potentially.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Chime in on AI policy.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Elon Musk is he involved in any capacity.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Not in what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
So you know, again, we have an office within the
White House and we deal with crypto and AI policy.
Elon's doing doge and these are two totally separate initiatives.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
But let's talk a little bit more about what the
contours of the AI policy could look like. I realize
you can't share too much at the moment, but what
will be your priority areas? A lot of the talk
has been around AI competitiveness and what we've seen coming
out of Trump's President Trump's comments around the Chips Act
and then National Science Foundation layoffs. There is some concern
(11:39):
that this could undermine competitiveness if there's not enough federal
funding going to research.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Well, I think there are some items that are policy
items that are coming up very quickly. So, for example,
there was this eleventh hour policy that was announced by
or rule that was now called the Diffusion Rule, that
was announced by the Biden administration, and that governs the
sale of advanced AI chips or GPUs to countries all
across the world. They're basically an international version of the
(12:09):
Export Controls. There's one hundred and twenty day clock on
that in order for the Trump administration to weigh in
and make whatever modifications we want to make. So, for example,
I think that's probably going to be one of the
first policy items on our plate that we have to
address because there's a clock on it. So I think
that you export controls are a big area. Diffusion is
a big area. Just the you know, how we govern
(12:34):
the licensing of the most sophisticated chips and semiconductor manufacturing
equipment is sort of at the heart of the policy
discussion right now.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Would you ultimately be supporting an end to the Chips Act.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I don't think that anyone in the administration has said
we want to end it, but the President has been
very critical of it, and I think with good reason.
I mean, I think the intent of the Chips Act
was good. We were trying to get semiconductor manufacturing to
occur in the.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
United States, but it's so strategic.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
The problem is that the money went to, frankly, a
lot of companies who are losing in that very competitive market.
And some of those companies haven't even used the money
that they were granted because they're not doing very well.
So the Chips Act is had, I think, mixed results
at a high cost, and the question is just whether
we can do something much better. And I think what
the President has said is that he would like to
use terrorists as an incentive to get companies to onshore
(13:29):
their semiconductor manufacturing here. And the advantage of that approach
is that the best companies have to do it too.
They can't kind of drag their feet or they're going
to be hit with terrifts. So I think the President
has figured out a very powerful weapon, a very powerful
incentive to get the best companies to want to onshore
their manufacturing, including for semiconductors, and that is very strategic
(13:50):
for the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
TSMC putting money where its mouth is and potentially in
response to tariff concerns.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
For you, right, you saw that. Yeah, sorry you mentioned
the SMC. I think it's a very good point. We
did a press conference with them just earlier in the
week and they announced over one hundred billion dollar investment
in the US and a big part of the reason
why is because of the President's Tariff's policies give them
a strong incentive to want to move some manufacturing here
because they know that if they don't do that, they're
going to be here with the tariff.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
With forty five seconds. They've got to ask you, therefore,
should Intel not be getting the money? Is that the
company you're hinting at.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I'm not saying they shouldn't get it, but I think
that everyone knows that Intel's a very challenged company right now,
and I think that it's unfortunately.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
We want Intel to do well.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
We want domestic chip manufacturing, and Intel is a legendary
company and it is one of the few companies in
the United States that's capable of doing advanced chip manufacturing.
So we want them to do well, and I think
we will try to do whatever we can to help
them do well well.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You're going to be speaking with lots of leaders from
other companies today. Of course, over at the White House
leaders of crypto exchanges.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Across the ball We thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
The White House AI and cryptos are David Sachs, head
of that unimportant White House crypto meeting,
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
What's happening in the world of crypto, though, because so
much to delve into when it comes to the latest
executive order.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
As many anticipate that.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Such regulations will become more pro crypto, and we see
that executive order signed last night with a reserve for bitcoin,
we're now pleased to be welcoming to our TV and
radio audiences around the world. Someone who can dive into
this exact executive order. We bring in the White House
AI and cryptos are David Sachs.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
It's busy.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
You're about to expect yet more people coming to the
White House from the cryptosphere. Remind the American public and
investors why you need a bitcoin reserve at all?
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Well, good to be here, I mean, the reason why
we need a bitcoin reserve is that the federal government
already owns some. In fact, it obtained around four hundred
thousand bitcoin over the past decade through criminal and civil
forfeitures and seizures, and so the government has to have
a strategy for how it deals with this. In the past,
the strategy has been simply to sell it in an
(01:07):
ad hoc way, almost willy nilly and that cost American
taxpayer something like seventeen billion dollars in lost value. So
we want to have a long term strategy to maximize
the value of these holdings. We've decided that that bitcoin
is scarce, it's valuable, and that is strategic for the
United States to hold on to.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
This as a long term reserve asset.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
So that's the plan with the two hundred thousand bitcoin
that we believe are in the possession of the federal government.
I say we believe because no one really knows for
sure because we never had a proper audit. So that's
one of the first things that this executive order provides
that we're going to do a full government wide audit
to find out what digital assets we actually have so
they can be safeguarded and moved into a strategy that
(01:46):
maximizes their long term value.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
And then there's the stockpile.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Talk to us about the nuance there and why you
need to stockpile for old coins and how you're treating
them differently.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Well, the idea there is again we're going to figure
out what do we actually have on the federal balot sheet,
and we're going to move those Like you said, all
coins are digital assets other than bitcoin into a stockpile
for safekeeping. The difference there is that the Secretary of
the Treasury will exercise responsible stewardship over those assets, and
(02:17):
he has the discretion to rebalance the portfolio or to
sell items in that portfolio. But that's not true for bitcoin.
The bitcoin we want to keep long term, So there's
a difference there in objective. With the reserve, the goal
is long term preservation. With the stockpile, the goal is
responsible stewardship the portfolio management.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
In essence, David, the executive order also tasks Secretary Lutnik
Investment with finding budget neutral ways that won't cost the
taxpayer to add to that reserve. What qualifies as budget neutral?
Can you give us some examples of how that would
actually work well?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Budget neutral this means it won't cost the tax or anything,
It won't increase the deficit, it won't increase the debt.
So that's basically the constraints on what they can do.
If they can figure out creative ways to add to
the stock to the reserve of bitcoin, they're allowed to
accumulate more bitcoin, but again it cannot impose any burden
on the federal deficit, debt or the taxpayer.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
So that's the rule.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Now you can ask the question, well, how are they
going to do that? And I think that's sort of
up to them if they can figure out creative strategies
that they believe are in the long term insto the country.
They now have the authorization to develop those strategies.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Do you think using savings that come from DOZE, for example,
qualify is something that would be budget neutral?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
That's a good question. I don't know the answer to
that question.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I think that that's something that I have to be
assessed by probably the Office of Management of Budget. I
think that since DOZE is cutting the deficit that and
we'd want to seek a way to rescind those appropriations,
it probably would not count.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
But you probably have to ask the O and B
that when you talk about the stewardship, particularly the stockpile,
could you be seeing things like staking lending. Is there
going to be other ways to maximize the volume there?
Speaker 4 (04:10):
I mean, it's a good question.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I mean, you know, I think that the idea of
this executive order is to create the mandate. Right, so
first of all, we're going to move these digital assets
from wherever they are all over the government. We're going
to find out what they are. First of all, we're
going to do the account and we're going to do
the audit. Then we're going to move them into a
separate account for safekeeping. And then the Sectuary of the
Treasury and his team will be able to exercise portfolio
management and long term and responsible stewardship.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
And yes, that could.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Include staking, it could include rebalancing, it could include sales.
These are all options that they can pursue if the
Sectary of the Treasury believes that these are in the
long term interests of the American people.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Just going into what's in the holding of the US government.
Going back to what President Trump mentioned over the weekend
talking of Ripple Solana, other alternative coins that people are
wondering whether they're going to be included in stot Paul,
will they Does the US own them? Why mention them
by the president?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well, the President just mentioned the top five cryptocurrencies by
market cap, So I think people are just reading into
this a little bit too much. He just mentioned the
top five In terms of what we'll actually have.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Again, we have to do the accounting.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
We're not sure at sitting here today whether the federal
government owns any of these alternative cryptocurrencies. We know it
owns bitcoin. I believe it owns some ethereum. I'm not
sure about the other ones. This is why we have
to do the accounting. Is that, to be honest, no
one's been able to give us a straight answer yet
in terms of what the federal government owns. And this
is part of the problem, is that we've never really
had a digital asset strategy before, and this is why
(05:37):
we've missed out on accumulating a lot of value for
the American people.
Speaker 5 (05:44):
David, you mentioned earlier that you know you don't have
any additional cryptocurrency assets and where you've divested from your
interests there. However, Secretary Lutnik in July mentioned that he
had quote shed load of bitcoin. Do you think it's
important for these stewards of the Reserve and the stockpile
(06:06):
to divest from their cryptocurrency interests?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Do you know if they've done so already.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
I can't speak to a situation.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
You know, every member of the administration has to go
through the same ethics process and the same conflict of
interest process that I've gone through. So I'll let him
speak to his own situation, I can to say that
in my case, I divested or sold all the cryptocurrency
that I own prior to the start of the administration,
so there's no conflict in my case, I just want
to have the right innovation policies for the United States.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Do you think it's important, though, to just not have
that appearance of a conflict of interest?
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
I mean, look, we're all subject to eighteen USC.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Two eight.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
These are the conflict of interest provisions. Every member the
administration is subject to that. But I'm not going to
speak to anyone's situation, so we all are governed by
the same conflict of interest rules. In my case, I
choasted to divest everything. To make it simple, you should
ask every other member of the administration what their situation is.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
How about the president, because I think here in lies
some of the issues for those who are on the
outside of crypto looking in and suddenly feel that the
US president has an exposure to mean coins or Solana.
How do you give the confidence to the US investor
base and indeed US population that this is totally legit.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Well, honestly, I think you're kind of making something up there.
I mean, how do you know that he has exposure
to Salona. Is that's something you just came up with.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, ultimately, when we think about the mean coin exposure
in particular, and people trying to understand for what reason
we have a trump coin from Milan your coin, is
there a clearer way that the US president can disassociate
himself from any event upside when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Well, I think he's already spoke to the trump coin,
and I think that that is a collectible. The SEC
said it's a collectible. Collectibles have no intrinsic value, they're
not security. Is there in a different category, And I
think as long as you issue at meme coin and
disclaim that there's no intrinsic value, it can just be
a collectible. So that is a different category I think
than what we're talking about here with cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
What do you make some of the market reaction?
Speaker 5 (08:12):
I mean, clearly Bitcoin down later earlier today on the
back of just not really getting what they were hoping for.
You know, if the government is not going to buy
additional crypto, then what's really the benefit. But can you
say for sure that the administration is not open to
using taxpayer dollars in the future. Is that completely off
(08:34):
the table according to this EO, it is.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
We've said that this will not cost taxpayers a dime.
So we've been very clear in this executive Order that
we will not use taxpayer funds to basically accumulate more
crypto unless it can be done in a completely budget
neutral way. No increase in the death st no increase
in the debt, no use of taxpayer funds, no burden
on the taxpayer. We've been very clear in this Executive
(08:58):
Order about that.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
David, Let's move on to artificial intelligence, where you're also
weighing in on policy there. The Biden Executive Order was
repealed in January. What is in the works currently that
you can share about how that's looking and who's involved.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
So the president is week one executive order on AI
that rescinded the Biden EO. By the way, that was
a very burdensome executive order that Biden had passed, those
over one hundred pages of burn some regulations on AI companies.
The whole industry hated it. He rescinded that, and he
tasked three people to basically evaluate a new and create
a new AI action plan and those people are the
(09:37):
head of the Office of Science Technology Policy, the now
Security Advisor, myself, and so we're currently working on that
plan and we'll have more information for you about that
once we're ready to present.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
How confident are you at this moment around AI leadership
here in the United States that thick and fast the
news coming out of China, for example, of the latest
models that are incredibly powerful with less data and ultimately
more efficient. How you exercising the view that AI can
be still a leader for the United States and not
losing its leadership versus China.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Well, I'm confident in American leadership, but we can't be
complacent about it. I mean, it's very clear that China
is going to be very, very competitive. Something like roughly
half of the AI researchers in the world are from China.
They are very good at math and science, and you've
seen with the launch of deep Seek that they're very good.
They're very good AI software companies. So this is going
to be a very competitive race, and we have to
(10:31):
win that race. But we can't be complacent about that
in any way. It's going to be a very tough
competition here.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
There's actually reporting from other news sources that maybe deep
seat would be bad from apps here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Do you think that's appropriate.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
It's pretty mature for me to comment on something like that.
If the administration announces a policy on that, then I'll
comment on it.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Then let's talk about some of the other voices inside
the White House as of late that could potentially.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Chime in on AI policy.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Elon Musk is he involved in any capacity.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
Not in what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
So you know, again, we have an office within the
White House and we deal with crypto and AI policy.
Elon's doing doge and these are two totally separate initiatives.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
But let's talk a little bit more about what the
contours of the AI policy could look like. I realize
you can't share too much at the moment, but what
will be your priority areas? A lot of the talk
has been around AI competitiveness and what we've seen coming
out of Trump's President Trump's comments around the Chips Act
and then National Science Foundation layoffs. There is some concern
(11:39):
that this could undermine competitiveness if there's not enough federal
funding going to research.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Well, I think there are some items that are policy
items that are coming up very quickly. So, for example,
there was this eleventh hour policy that was announced by
or rule that was now called the Diffusion Rule, that
was announced by the Biden administration, and that governs the
sale of advanced AI chips or GPUs to countries all
across the world. They're basically an international version of the
(12:09):
Export Controls. There's one hundred and twenty day clock on
that in order for the Trump administration to weigh in
and make whatever modifications we want to make. So, for example,
I think that's probably going to be one of the
first policy items on our plate that we have to
address because there's a clock on it. So I think
that you export controls are a big area. Diffusion is
a big area. Just the you know, how we govern
(12:34):
the licensing of the most sophisticated chips and semiconductor manufacturing
equipment is sort of at the heart of the policy
discussion right now.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Would you ultimately be supporting an end to the Chips Act.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I don't think that anyone in the administration has said
we want to end it, but the President has been
very critical of it, and I think with good reason.
I mean, I think the intent of the Chips Act
was good. We were trying to get semiconductor manufacturing to
occur in the.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
United States, but it's so strategic.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
The problem is that the money went to, frankly, a
lot of companies who are losing in that very competitive market.
And some of those companies haven't even used the money
that they were granted because they're not doing very well.
So the Chips Act is had, I think, mixed results
at a high cost, and the question is just whether
we can do something much better. And I think what
the President has said is that he would like to
use terrorists as an incentive to get companies to onshore
(13:29):
their semiconductor manufacturing here. And the advantage of that approach
is that the best companies have to do it too.
They can't kind of drag their feet or they're going
to be hit with terrifts. So I think the President
has figured out a very powerful weapon, a very powerful
incentive to get the best companies to want to onshore
their manufacturing, including for semiconductors, and that is very strategic
(13:50):
for the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
TSMC putting money where its mouth is and potentially in
response to tariff concerns.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
For you, right, you saw that. Yeah, sorry you mentioned
the SMC. I think it's a very good point. We
did a press conference with them just earlier in the
week and they announced over one hundred billion dollar investment
in the US and a big part of the reason
why is because of the President's Tariff's policies give them
a strong incentive to want to move some manufacturing here
because they know that if they don't do that, they're
going to be here with the tariff.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
With forty five seconds. They've got to ask you, therefore,
should Intel not be getting the money? Is that the
company you're hinting at.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
I'm not saying they shouldn't get it, but I think
that everyone knows that Intel's a very challenged company right now,
and I think that it's unfortunately.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
We want Intel to do well.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
We want domestic chip manufacturing, and Intel is a legendary
company and it is one of the few companies in
the United States that's capable of doing advanced chip manufacturing.
So we want them to do well, and I think
we will try to do whatever we can to help
them do well well.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You're going to be speaking with lots of leaders from
other companies today. Of course, over at the White House
leaders of crypto exchanges.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Across the ball We thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
The White House AI and cryptos are David Sachs, head
of that unimportant White House crypto meeting,
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