What Investors Should Know About David Sacks, Donald Trump's New "AI and Crypto Czar"

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he was appointing former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as his "White House AI and Crypto Czar." $Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ broke $100,000 for the first time last week.

Elad Gil, an entrepreneur who has invested in companies such as $Airbnb (ABNB.US)$ and the cryptocurrency platform $Coinbase (COIN.US)$, called the choice of Sacks a "strong move" in a post on X. Coinbase COO Emilie Choi added on X: “Great pick, David Sacks was in crypto early and has a nuanced understanding of the space. Time to build in the US!"

Sacks, 52, is a venture capitalist and part of Silicon Valley’s “PayPal Mafia.” He first made his name in the technology industry during a stint as the chief operating officer of PayPal, the payments company whose founders in the late 1990s included billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and investor Peter Thiel. PayPal was acquired by $eBay (EBAY.US)$ in 2002.

Sacks is also a former chief executive of software company Zenefits and founded Yammer, a social network for enterprise users, which was bought by $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$.

His firm has also backed Musk’s social media platform X, $Palantir (PLTR.US)$, and $Affirm Holdings (AFRM.US)$, which is run by another PayPal mafia member Max Levchin.

Here are the companies that Craft Ventures has invested in and are publicly listed. Since the election, these companies have all recorded impressive gains: $Palantir (PLTR.US)$ has risen over 84%, $Affirm Holdings (AFRM.US)$ has increased by more than 64%, $Reddit (RDDT.US)$ has nearly reached a 50% increase, and $Warby Parker (WRBY.US)$ has gone up by more than 35%. Notably, this venture capital firm has also invested in SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company founded by Elon Musk.