The far right is mobilizing against Trump AI czar David Sacks
December 5, 2025
Washington lawmakers had barely finished processing the news that Congress would not put a state AI law ban into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) when a new rumor began trickling out of the White House on Wednesday: President Donald Trump would, indeed, sign an executive order that would ostensibly assign the federal government the ability to punish states for writing their own AI laws.
There was the possibility that it would be as drastic as the one that had leaked from the White House weeks before, which would have given David Sacks, billionaire venture capitalist and the White House’s AI and crypto czar, immense influence over setting AI policy. There was the possibility that it would be watered down and symbolic, to face the political reality that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the idea of a state AI moratorium while satisfying Trump’s already stated desire for a moratorium.. But the prospect itself was so dire that it activated a group that rarely criticizes Trump: hard right MAGA Republican podcasters wired into the White House’s whisper networks.
