President Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence and crypto czar plans to work for the administration indefinitely despite a 130-day cap on his government employment status.
Trump brought on David Sacks as a special government employee (SGE), allowing the Silicon Valley insider to maintain his various business activities even as he works with the White House to create a legal framework for cryptocurrency and AI.
The designation also means Sacks did not have to go through the Senate confirmation process or provide a full financial disclosure, since SGEs are supposed to be temporary. By law, they can only work 130 days per 365-day period.
The Trump administration, however, has interpreted that limitation as 130 non-consecutive days. Sacks is therefore meticulously tracking his work days to stay on long-term, sources told Semafor.
“He has no intention of leaving,” a source told the site’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith.
Similar accounting has been deployed at the Department of Homeland Security, where Secretary Kristi Noem’s de facto chief of staff, former Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, has been accused of undercounting his work hours in order to remain with the department.
Sources told Axios that Lewandowski sometimes entered government buildings with other employees to avoid swiping his badge or used his personal devices so he wouldn’t create a paper trail on government systems.
Sacks, meanwhile, tracks his government work days with the focus of a banker avoiding New York City taxes or a dieter on Weight Watchers, sources told Semafor.
He has divested some of his crypto assets but not all of them, the Financial Times reported in March, and has also offloaded some AI investments, according to Axios.
The former PayPal chief operating officer and long-time tech investor has managed to survive far longer than Silicon Valley’s other most high-profile SGE, Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
The Trump mega-donor turned government-efficiency-advisor was forced to leave the White House in late May when his own 130-day tenure ran out.
Soon afterward, long-simmering tensions between Musk and the president exploded out into the open, engulfing the former “first buddies” in an ugly public feud. Musk was notably missing last week from a dinner with tech titans who gathered at the White House to praise Trump.
Sacks managed to easily avoid the fallout after Trump and Musk’s relationship imploded, demonstrating the strength of his relationship with the president, according to Semafor.
In the meantime, the Trump family has launched crypto ventures worth billions of dollars. Sacks was instrumental in helping Trump push the GENIUS Act through Congress and sending the value of crypto surging.
