White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks has fired back at The New York Times over a report detailing how his government advisory role could benefit his investments and his close associates.
Sacks said in a post to X that despite having “debunked in detail” the Times’ reporting over the past five months, the outlet continued to publish the article on Sunday about his supposed conflicts of interest.
“Today they evidently just threw up their hands and published this nothing burger,” Sacks wrote. “Anyone who reads the story carefully can see that they strung together a bunch of anecdotes that don’t support the headline.”
Sacks is a co-founder and partner at the venture firm Craft Ventures, and his special government employee role at the White House has drawn scrutiny in the past, with Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren saying in May that he is “financially invested in the crypto industry, positioning him to potentially profit from the crypto policy changes he makes at the White House.”
Before he became crypto czar, Sacks and Craft divested over $200 million in crypto and crypto-tied stocks, at least $85 million of which Sacks owned, but Sacks retained an interest in several illiquid investments of “private equity of digital asset-related companies.”
Sacks retains 20 crypto investments, The Times reports
The Times reported that its analysis of Sacks’ financial disclosure found he has retained 708 tech investments, 449 of which are AI-related and 20 are tied to crypto, all of which could benefit from the policies Sacks supports.
In one example of a perceived conflict in Sacks’ role, the outlet stated that Craft Ventures is invested in the crypto infrastructure company BitGo, which offers a stablecoin-as-a-service.
BitGo filed to go public in September, with regulatory filings showing Craft owned 7.8% of the company.
The Times noted that Sacks was a major backer of the stablecoin-regulating GENIUS Act, which was signed into law earlier this year. Many crypto commentators said this would boost the use and uptake of the tokens by institutions.
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Other examples noted by the Times involved Sacks’ and Craft’s ties to companies involved with AI, which have skyrocketed in value as the White House and Wall Street bet on the technology’s potential.
The Times noted that Sacks’ ethics waivers, shared in March, stated he would sell his interests in AI and crypto; however, they don’t disclose when he sold the assets and do not detail the value of his remaining investments.
NYT created “bogus narrative,” says Sacks
In his X post, Sacks shared a letter to the Times sent by his lawyers at Clare Locke accusing the outlet of setting out “to write a hit piece” and giving their reporters “clear marching orders” to find conflicts of interest.
Sacks added it was “very clear how NYT willfully mischaracterized or ignored the facts to support their bogus narrative.”
Sacks’ spokesperson Jessica Hoffman told the Times that he has complied with rules for special government employees, and the Office of Government Ethics said that Sacks should sell his investments in certain types of companies but not others.
Sacks’ role as a special government employee is limited to 130 days, and in September, Democratic lawmakers questioned whether he had exceeded the number of days allowed with his appointment.
However, Sacks reportedly carefully manages the days he spends as a special government employee to ensure that he stays under the limit.
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