With Elon Musk taking part in such a high-profile position in Donald Trump’s transition crew, Musk’s buddies, a lot of them Silicon Valley enterprise capitalists, are reportedly being tapped to assist out.
As an illustration, VC agency Andreessen Horowitz, and specifically co-founder Marc Andreessen, is repeatedly being talked about. He, together with Antonio Gracias and Joe Lonsdale, are reportedly being requested to assist with Musk’s advisory panel, the Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, which is inspecting methods to beat the technical challenges of accumulating information about federal packages, reported the Washington Post on Sunday.
They’re amongst a handful of different Silicon Valley moguls being tapped.
Gracias is co-founder of Valor Fairness Companions, which has carried out properly backing Musk firms through the years, together with SpaceX and Tesla (the latter the place he was on the board of administrators from 2007 to 2021). Lonsdale is co-founder of VC agency 8VC and an energetic backer of protection tech like Anduril and different authorities tech, like monetary software program supplier OpenGov. Lonsdale labored beneath billionaire VC Peter Thiel and helped co-found Palantir. Andreessen Horowitz has been a big-time investor in SpaceX since around 2022 and buys extra inventory as it might, TechCrunch beforehand reported, and Andreessen has been a vocal supporter of Musk.
The DOGE committee hopes to suggest cuts to packages and to cut back the variety of federal workers, Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy defined in a Wall Street Journal editorial final week. In addition they count on to face authorized pushback, they wrote. Within the speedy future, the group plans to launch a podcast, the Washington Submit studies.
In the meantime, Andreessen Horowitz can be stated to be within the working for a place on a promised Trump administration crypto advisory council. It will likely be staffed with various execs from the crypto trade who search to assist the U.S. set up crypto coverage, trade executives told Reuters last week. Brian Quintenz, head of coverage for a16z crypto, has already been advising Trump’s crew, Reuters studies.
One other VC being mentioned for a spot on this committee is Paradigm, an funding agency co-founded by Fred Ehrsam, who beforehand co-founded Coinbase. Paradigm focuses on crypto/blockchain investments. Coinbase, which isn’t a VC agency however does fund its personal company arm, Coinbase Ventures, can be within the committee, sources inform Reuters.
In the meantime, former Thiel disciple Michael Kratsios, who served as chief tech officer beneath the primary Trump administration, has reportedly been tapped to deal with tech coverage for Trump’s transition crew, Politico reported last week. Kratsios was identified for authoring Trump’s 2020 pro-AI funding govt order. Previous to his position in authorities, he labored for Thiel Capital. Kratsios, nonetheless, isn’t presently a VC. He’s been working at AI firm Scale AI since 2021, in keeping with his LinkedIn.
Lonsdale and a16z couldn’t be instantly reached for remark. In addition they didn’t reply to request for remark by the Washington Submit.
