David Sacks & the War on Anthropic
Sources 31
Primary documents, filings, and reporting cited in this episode. Click any source to highlight where it comes up in the transcript, or press ▶ to jump to that moment.
Office of Science and Technology Policy ↗
OSTP landing page; says the OSTP Director co-chairs PCAST. It does not mention Sacks.
Newsroom ↗
Anthropic newsroom index (lists the 15 Oct 2026 "An update on independent evaluators" post about METR).
President Trump Announces Appointments to President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology ↗
25 Mar 2026 release naming Sacks and Michael Kratsios as PCAST co-chairs.
David Sacks says his time as Trump's crypto and AI czar has ended ↗
26 Mar 2026: Sacks says he has used up his 130 days as a special government employee and moves to PCAST.
David Sacks is done as AI czar -- here's what he's doing instead ↗
26 Mar 2026: Sacks's 130-day SGE stint ends; TechCrunch says PCAST puts him further from power.
Trump unveils AI task force ↗
Semafor report of 4 Oct 2026 on the White House "Super Intelligence Force".
White House AI Task Force Plans Breach Reporting for AI Labs ↗
19 Oct 2026: first task force meeting; Emil Michael is vice chair; PCAST runs the risk study.
David Sacks on X: "Are Small Models Really a Threat? The Anthropic Fear Factory..." ↗
Sacks mocks Anthropic's self-replication report as "your toaster might kill you".
Sacks Slams Anthropic AI Safety Bill Over Stale FLOPs Threshold ↗
17 Oct 2026: Sacks says the 10^25 FLOPs line in Anthropic's draft bill is a 2023 EU number that would sweep in enterprise AI.
Anthropic’s AI safety bill draws fire over its frontier compute line ↗
17 Oct 2026: details of the 10^25 FLOPs "covered developer" test in Anthropic's draft federal bill.
David Sacks on X: reply to Jack Clark on Anthropic equity ↗
Sacks's 18 Oct 2026 reply to Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark.
Investing in the public benefit ↗
18 Oct 2026: Anthropic commits 5% of shares to a new Public Benefit Fund.
When AI models refuse to fight hackers ↗
20 Oct 2026: OpenCode and Hugging Face defenders were blocked by frontier-model guardrails mid-investigation.
Silicon Valley spooks the AI safety advocates ↗
Oct 2025: Sacks's "regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering" post replying to Jack Clark.
Anthropic tries to keep pace with OpenAI, faces off with David Sacks ↗
Oct 2025: background on the Sacks–Anthropic feud.
Silicon Valley’s Man in the White House Is Benefiting Himself and His Friends ↗
30 Nov 2025 NYT investigation into Sacks's investments and policy role.
New report examines how David Sacks might profit from Trump administration role ↗
30 Nov 2025 summary of the NYT investigation into Sacks's investments and policy role.
White House Accord on Super Intelligence ↗
Text of the 29 Sep 2026 voluntary accord signed by Trump and six company leaders.
The Quiet Political Rise of David Sacks, Silicon Valley’s Prophet of Urban Doom ↗
2022 profile: The Diversity Myth, Hillary 2016 donation, DeSantis giving, $1M to the pro-Vance PAC, the Boudin recall.
The Venture-Capital Populist ↗
George Packer's June 2026 profile of Sacks.
Money and motives: Who is paying for the school board recall, and why? ↗
Feb 2022: Sacks gave $74,500 to the SF school board recall.
Trump hits tech fundraiser in San Francisco, some guests pay $300,000 ↗
6 Jun 2024: the Sacks/Palihapitiya fundraiser, expected to raise $12M; Sacks's "break the ice" line.
Trump lands endorsement of top investor who hosted $12 million San Francisco fundraiser for former president ↗
Ticket tiers ($50,000 to $500,000 per couple) and the same-day endorsement.
Ex-Trump adviser backs self-imposed AI slowdown, rejects ‘cartel’ framework ↗
13 Sep 2026: quotes Sacks's post on Anthropic and OpenAI ("duopoly", "cartel", METR).
Trump’s former AI czar tells Anthropic and OpenAI to slow down, and to stop asking for anything in return ↗
13 Sep 2026: same post, with the "form a cartel" quote.
Anthropic gives outside AI watchdog “employee-like” access ↗
Oct 2026: METR team embedded at Anthropic. Anthropic isn't paying METR, and METR takes no AI-company donations.
US government warned Anthropic that Fable 5 had been jailbroken, but firm 'refused' to fix before US implemented export controls ↗
14 Jun 2026: Sacks's account of the Fable 5 jailbreak and the export control.
Trump administration reignites its feud with Anthropic over latest AI models ↗
14 Jun 2026: a person briefed on Amodei disputes Sacks's "Dario refused" account.
Statement on the directive to suspend Fable 5 access ↗
Anthropic's statement complying with, and disagreeing with, the suspension directive.
Limited waiver pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 208(b)(1) regarding A.I. assets (Warrington memo to Sacks) ↗
White House counsel waiver listing Sacks's divestments: Meta, Amazon and TSMC directly; xAI via Craft Ventures.
David Sacks sold $200 million in crypto holdings before taking WH job ↗
Mar 2025: Sacks and Craft sold over $200M of digital-asset investments; Craft still holds some funds.