U.S. President-elect Donald Trump Taps Tech Heavyweights for Administration
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped several tech heavyweights to join his administration, continuing a trend of Silicon Valley’s growing influence in a second Trump White House. Trump has nominated Scott Kupor, a managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, to be director of the Office of Personnel Management, which coordinates recruitment and provides resources for government employees.
Kupor will work alongside Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in their leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a nascent commission aimed at cutting government spending and regulation. Trump has also picked Sriram Krishnan, a former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, as senior policy advisor for artificial intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Krishnan has a long career in tech, having held roles at Microsoft, Meta, Twitter, Snap, and Yahoo, and has previous ties to Musk, having helped him temporarily run the social media service X after Musk acquired the platform for $44 billion in 2022. Musk, a tech billionaire and one of Trump’s top donors and most vocal supporters, has emerged as one of the president-elect’s closest advisors.
Additionally, Trump has tapped Ken Howery, a co-founder of PayPal and Founders Fund, as his pick for U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark, and Michael Kratsios, a former managing director at tech startup Scale AI, as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Trump has also named former Uber executive Emil Michael as undersecretary for research and engineering.
Tech business leaders have cheered the choices, with former Meta executive David Marcus calling the picks “remarkable” and Box CEO Aaron Levie saying they are “very strong.” Since Trump’s election victory, several tech companies have thrown their support behind the president-elect, a significant departure from his first term, when the industry at large maintained a tense relationship with Trump.