PULSE POINTS
❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump announced the first appointments to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: President Trump, PCAST co-chairs David Sacks and Michael Kratsios, and appointees including Marc Andreessen, Sergey Brin, Safra Catz, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Jensen Huang, and Mark Zuckerberg, among others.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Announced today, as part of an Executive Order establishing the Council.
💬KEY QUOTE: “Under President Trump, PCAST will focus on ensuring all Americans thrive in the Golden Age of Innovation.” – White House statement
🎯IMPACT: The Council will provide recommendations to strengthen American leadership in science and technology.
President Donald J. Trump has named the first members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which was created by executive order. The panel is authorized to have up to 24 members, and further appointments are expected shortly.
PCAST will be co-chaired by David Sacks, who has already been tapped as Trump’s artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto czar, and Michael Kratsios, the President’s assistant for science and technology. PCAST’s currently confirmed appointees, including the likes of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang, are as follows:
Marc Andreessen
Co-founder of Netscape Communications, which created the first widely used web browser, and co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Sergey Brin
Russian-American computer scientist and co-founder of Google (now Alphabet).
Mark Zuckerberg
Founder, chairman, and CEO of Meta Platforms (originally Facebook), which is now heavily investing in AI and the metaverse.
Larry Ellison
Founder of Oracle Corporation, a global leader in database software, enterprise cloud, and business applications.
Safra Catz
CEO of Oracle Corporation; previously longtime CFO, she has steered the company’s shift to cloud infrastructure and AI-driven services.
Michael Dell
Founder and CEO of Dell Technologies; pioneered the direct-sales PC model and built one of the largest enterprise IT and computing hardware empires.
Jensen Huang
Co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA; turned the company into the dominant provider of GPUs that power modern AI training and inference.
Lisa Su
CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD); has driven the company’s resurgence in high-performance CPUs, GPUs, and AI accelerators.
Fred Ehrsam
Co-founder of Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, and co-founder of Paradigm, a leading crypto-focused venture capital firm.
John Martinis
Physicist and quantum computing pioneer who led Google’s Quantum AI team.
Bob Mumgaard
Co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a MIT spinout developing compact, high-temperature superconducting fusion reactors for commercial power.
Jacob DeWitte
Co-founder and CEO of Oklo, a company building small, modular, advanced fission reactors to deliver clean, always-on energy.
David Friedberg
Founder of The Climate Corporation (sold to Monsanto), now runs The Production Board, an investment platform focused on biology, agriculture, energy, and climate technologies.
“Under President Trump, PCAST will focus on topics related to the opportunities and challenges that emerging technologies present to the American workforce, and ensuring all Americans thrive in the Golden Age of Innovation,” the White House said in a statement.
The council continues a long tradition that dates back to the Science Advisory Board established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Since that time, every American president has maintained a similar group to draw on the knowledge of scientists, engineers, and business leaders to shape national policy.
Image by Anurag R Dubey.
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