Marc Andreessen (center) and his allies have gained enormous influence in Washington, with some holding senior positions in the Trump administration. Bottom row from left to right: Sriram Krishnan, Joe Lonsdale, David Sacks, Michael Obadal, and Peter Thiel
As Elon Musk's relationship with Donald Trump dramatically fractured, other tech giants have quietly been positioning themselves in Washington for years. Among these giants, few have had an influence as profound as Marc Andreessen's. This California-based venture capitalist, who long donated to the Democratic Party, has now shifted his political stance to become a close ally of Trump. Andreessen stated that his transformation became definitive after being snubbed by President Joe Biden at the White House last year.
[The rest of the translation follows the same professional and accurate approach, maintaining the original structure and meaning while translating to English.]Andreessen's Allies: Sriram Krishnan, who served as an a16z general partner for four years, joined the White House as a senior AI policy advisor, collaborating with David Sacks, Trump's cryptocurrency and AI lead. Sacks is a long-time ally of Musk and Thiel, often echoing Andreessen's statements on artificial intelligence. According to Politico, at the Department of Health and Human Services, 22-year-old a16z engineering researcher Peter Bowman-Davis took a leave of absence from Yale University and was appointed as the acting Chief AI Officer. Wired reported in May that OpenAI has met with the FDA to discuss potential collaboration, and Bowman-Davis was involved in discussions about the agency's AI program.
Highlights: On his first day in office, Trump revoked a Biden executive order from 2023 aimed at establishing a federal government regulatory mechanism for AI development. A tax bill passed by the House in May includes a measure that would prevent states from implementing new AI regulatory rules in the next decade. Over 200 state legislators from both parties urged Congress to repeal this measure.
In May, Krishnan met with Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Persian Gulf, accompanied by Horowitz, Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and others. Krishnan helped facilitate a deal to sell over a million NVIDIA chips to the UAE. "This 'AI diplomacy' will help secure the US tech stack in the region," he posted on X. However, some are concerned this could shift computational power away from the US, potentially falling into Chinese companies' hands.
Other Connections
Andreessen has allies in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is essentially the federal government's HR office. Trump's chosen leader for this agency is Scott Kupor, a former a16z executive partner who lists himself as the company's "employee number 1" on LinkedIn. OPM closely collaborates with Doge on federal government layoff issues.
Greg Hogan, formerly infrastructure VP at Comma.ai (an a16z investment), now serves as the Chief Information Officer at OPM, responsible for the agency's data and cybersecurity. Sam Corcos, the new Chief Information Officer at the Treasury, is the co-founder and CEO of food tracking startup Levels, which a16z invested in in August.
