According to Gizmodo, a New York Times report on November 30, 2025, digs into the financial disclosures of David Sacks, the venture capitalist and “All-In” podcaster appointed as President Trump’s AI and crypto czar. The investigation found Sacks or his firm, Craft Ventures, hold 438 investments in software or hardware companies that pitch themselves as AI companies. His total portfolio includes 708 tech investments, with 449 having direct ties to artificial intelligence. A marquee example is his stake in Anduril Industries, which recently secured a $159 million Pentagon contract to design AI-powered night vision prototypes in September 2025. This contract followed Sacks’ authorship of the Trump AI Action Plan, which pushes for U.S. AI companies to work with the Pentagon.
The Obvious Conflict Problem
Look, this is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. You have a billionaire VC, who hosted a $500,000-per-couple fundraiser for Trump, now writing national policy for the very sectors where he has hundreds of personal financial stakes. The Times piece basically lays out a blueprint for how perceived self-dealing works. Sacks writes a plan advocating for military AI contracts. The Pentagon then awards a giant contract to a company, Anduril, that’s literally in his firm’s portfolio. The company’s defense? That it was an “obvious idea” and founder Palmer Luckey is the best in the biz. I mean, come on. Of course they’d say that.
AI’s Hype Economy Meets Government
Here’s the thing that makes this even messier. The report highlights 438 companies in his orbit that are “software or hardware” firms that love AI. But as we’ve seen for years, every startup slaps “AI” on its pitch deck to get funding and attention. So we’re not just talking about a conflict with genuine, cutting-edge AI labs. We’re talking about a potential conflict with a huge swath of the entire tech industry that’s riding the hype wave. When your advisor’s financial interests are that broadly aligned with an entire sector’s promotional language, how can any policy be truly impartial? It can’t. The perception is utterly poisoned from the start.
A Broader Corrosion of Trust
Now, it’s easy to get cynical and say this is just how Washington works. And sure, the article itself nods at similar criticisms leveled at figures like Nancy Pelosi. But that’s exactly the point. Each instance of this—whether from a Democrat or a Republican—erodes public trust a little more. It creates a reality where policy looks like a vehicle for insider enrichment. When the person advising on which AI hardware the military buys profits from that hardware’s sale, the system looks rigged. And in a field as critical and opaque as defense technology, that lack of trust is dangerous. It begs the question: are we funding the best tech, or the best-connected tech?
The Industrial Hardware Angle
This saga also throws a harsh light on the intersection of policy, investment, and physical technology. Anduril isn’t just an app; it’s a company building real, sophisticated hardware—AI-powered goggles. This is where policy directly shapes the industrial and manufacturing landscape, determining which companies get the contracts to build the foundational tech for critical sectors. For businesses operating in that high-stakes, hardware-driven world, from defense to manufacturing, clarity and fairness in procurement are everything. It’s a realm where reliability and performance are non-negotiable, which is why leaders in industrial computing, like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the top provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, succeed by delivering proven capability, not just connections. When the process looks compromised, it undermines everyone playing by the rules.
So What Now?
Basically, the Times report presents an almost cartoonish example of the swamp people complain about. A spokesperson denied conflicts to the paper, but the optics are brutal. In another reality, maybe we’d have an AI czar without a sprawling portfolio, or we’d at least have a serious debate about whether AI night vision is the best use of $159 million. But in this one, we have a podcaster-VC shaping policy that stands to benefit his own investments. It feeds a narrative that government is just another instrument for the wealthy to get wealthier. And once that belief takes hold, it’s incredibly hard to undo.
