Elon Gets to Troll His Nemesis Thanks to Trump’s Latest Hire

David Gardner
·2-min read
Elon Musk trolled Sam Altman after the OpenAI boss shared a congratulatory post to David Sacks, Musk’s ally and Donald Trump’s new AI and crypto czar.
Andrew Harnik

Elon Musk mocked rival Sam Altman after the OpenAI boss congratulated Donald Trump’s new “White House A.I. and Crypto Czar” David Sacks.

The appointment of Elon Musk’s friend and fellow tech titan is the latest illustration of the Tesla founder’s influence in the president-elect’s new administration.

Venture capitalist Sacks, a podcaster who worked alongside Musk at PayPal, backed Trump during the election campaign, holding a lucrative fundraiser and supporting him on his All In podcast.

He has also invested in several of Musk’s businesses, including SpaceX, X, formerly known as Twitter, and xAI, a direct competitor to Altman’s OpenAI.

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After Trump announced Sacks’ new job, Altman went on X to write: “congrats to czar @DavidSacks!”

Musk responded by trolling the OpenAI CEO with a laughing emoji.

The social media jousting came after Altman said on Wednesday that it would be “profoundly un-American” for Musk to use his newfound political influence to “hurt competitors” and “advantage (his) own businesses.”

“I don’t think people would tolerate that,” Altman said in an interview at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit.

Musk, with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, is heading up DOGE, an advisory commission seeking to cut federal agencies. He is also suing Altman’s OpenAI, saying it has abandoned its original non-profit, open-source mission to instead focus on maximizing profits.

David Sacks with Elon Musk in 2006
David Sacks with Elon Musk in 2006

In May, Sacks launched his own AI chat platform, Glue, but he insists there is no conflict of interest with his new role.

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“The [czar] is an advisory role and has the same government classification as [DOGE], which does not require David to leave Craft,” Sacks’ venture capital company, Craft Ventures, told the Financial Times.

Trump announced the appointment on his Truth Social account, posting: “David has the knowledge, business experience, intelligence and pragmatism to MAKE AMERICA GREAT in these two critical technologies.

“He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US.”

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