Name: Jacob Helberg
Title: Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, U.S. State Department
Industry Affiliation
- From 2023 to 2025, Helberg served as a Senior Advisor to Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp. Palantir is a multi-billion dollar defense contractor that builds AI-powered software. Helberg also served as a fellow at the Palantir Foundation, Palantir’s 501(c)(3) affiliate.
- In 2023, Helberg co-founded the Hill & Valley Forum, an annual gathering of hundreds of legislators, such as senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), and officials from AI and defense companies, including Palantir (which is also a sponsor of the forum’s annual event), to strategize plans for securing the U.S.’ global leadership on AI.
- According to Helberg’s 2025 public financial disclosure report, he owned Palantir stock that was then valued somewhere between $100,001 to $250,000. In his ethics agreement, he pledged to divest his Palantir stock holdings no later than 90 days after his Senate confirmation as the U.S. State Department’s Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.
- In 2018, Helberg wed Keith Rabois, a major tech investor, in a ceremony that was officiated by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
- Rabois has extensive ties to Peter Thiel, Palantir’s co-founder. They were students together at Stanford University, and Rabois worked for the Stanford Review, the student newspaper co-founded by Thiel. Rabois went on to serve as Executive Vice President of Business Development, Public Affairs & Policy at the digital payment platform, PayPal. Accordingly, he is considered a member of the “PayPal mafia,” the group that helped Thiel and Elon Musk launch PayPal. Other members of the PayPal mafia include David Sacks, Trump’s former AI and crypto czar and current co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Rabois also worked for Thiel’s Clarium Capital Management and later became General Partner of Founders Fund, Thiel’s venture capital firm, which invests heavily in AI. Currently, Rabois is Managing Director at Khosla Ventures, another investment firm that is all in on AI.
- Helberg worked at the tech giant and AI heavyweight, Google, from 2016 to 2020 where he advised the company on global policies and standards. Prior to that, he was part of the founding team for GeoQuant, which provides AI-powered geopolitical risk analysis.
- Helberg’s 2025 public financial disclosure report listed 1,614 entries under “other assets and income,” featuring a sprawling range of AI firms and AI-focused investment firms as the source for his $112 million-$426 million+ in reported assets. Companies listed include Alphabet (Google’s parent company); NVIDIA; 137 Ventures; Sequoia Capital; SV Angel; Saildrone, Inc.; Hadrian; Physical AI; Apple; Microsoft; Amazon; Meta; Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.; Intel; and Oracle. His ethics agreement reveals that he retained his interests in the Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures, which are invested in a vast swath of AI and tech companies, including OpenAI.
- In 2022, Helberg set up Outbuild, LLC, which provides consulting services on public policy strategy. He advised venture capital clients with significant AI investments like Caffeinated Capital, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and 137 Ventures, as well as Hadrian, a company that offers AI-powered manufacturing.
- Additionally, Helberg has held titles at AI and defense-focused think tanks that receive significant contributions from defense contractors. (None of the roles, however, resulted in published research or writings from Helberg.)
- Helberg was a Senior Adjunct Fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) from 2022 to 2025. CNAS is a think tank focused on, among other things, connecting the tech and policymaker communities with each other in order to formulate ways to ensure that the U.S. wins against China in the AI race. The group has received at least over $8 million in funding from defense contractors since 2019, including at least $225,000 from Palantir.
- From 2020 to 2023, he served as the Brookings Institution’s Co-Chair of the China Strategy Initiative Working Group and the U.S.-France Working Group on China to develop U.S. strategy to stay ahead of China. Since 2019, the Brookings Institution has received a minimum of $3.9 million in donations from defense contractors, including at least $50,000 from Palantir.
- Helberg was an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2019 to 2021. The think tank has received at least $6,230,000 in contributions from defense contractors since 2019.
- From 2020 to 2022, Helberg served as a part-time contractor to Stanford University’s Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance, which produces research on AI policy and digital competition with China and enjoys a relationship with Silicon Valley. During that time, Helberg also authored a book called The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power. The book calls for close collaboration between the federal government and Silicon Valley in order to win in technological warfare against China and other countries.
Revolver/Government Experience
- Helberg was a Commissioner on the Congressionally-created U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission from 2023 to 2024. He was appointed to the role by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who was a big fan of Helberg’s The Wires of War book. The bipartisan, twelve-member Commission monitors, reports, and makes recommendations to Congress about national security concerns arising from U.S.-China trade relations. As Commissioner, Helberg co-chaired a congressional hearing titled “Risks of Chinese Technology in U.S.”
- During the 2020 election cycle, Helberg was a bundler for Pete Buttigieg’s Democratic presidential campaign.
- In 2014, Helberg consulted on Richard Bloom’s Democratic campaign for California State Assembly.
Trump Admin Ties
- During the 2024 election cycle, Helberg donated $1 million to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC; $844,600 to Trump 47 Committee, Inc., a joint fundraising PAC for Trump’s presidential campaign, the Republican National Committee, and Republican state party committees; $11,600 to Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, a joint fundraising PAC for Trump’s presidential campaign and Save America, a Trump-sponsored Leadership PAC; $6,600 to Never Surrender Inc., a Trump-sponsored Leadership PAC; $5,000 to Save America; and $371 to Trump National Committee JFC, Inc., a joint fundraising PAC for Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee. Helberg’s consulting company, Outbuild, LLC, contributed an additional $100,000 to MAGA Inc.
- Helberg’s husband, Rabois, donated $250,000 to Trump 47 Committee, Inc.; $100,000 to Right for America, a pro-Trump super PAC; $6,600 to Never Surrender, Inc.; and $5,000 to Save America. Rabois also cut a $1 million check to Trump’s inaugural fund.
- In February 2024, Helberg paid $100,000 to attend a Mar-a-Lago gathering with other Trump donors and met with Trump one-on-one two months later at Trump Tower in New York.
- In summer 2024, Helberg was named co-chair of the Red, White & Blue Club, a young professionals for Trump group, which organized a celebration immediately following the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He also co-hosted a fundraiser for Trump during the RNC.
- In addition to boosting Trump’s presidential run, Helberg and Rabois hosted a fundraiser in April 2024 at their Miami home for Trump’s vice president, JD Vance. Five months later, they co-hosted a Jewish Leadership Coalition fundraiser for Vance in New York City, with tickets running between $25,000 per person and $250,000 per couple.
- Helberg and Rabois were Miami neighbors with Jared and Ivanka Trump.
- Also in 2024, Helberg and his associates put together a draft executive order to undo former president Joe Biden’s 2023 executive order, which sought to encourage the “safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of” AI. After Trump’s election victory, Helberg got exactly what he wanted. Upon his return to the White House, Trump issued an executive order that rescinded Biden’s AI rules.
- Helberg has pushed for U.S.-based manufacturing of the AI supply chain, which has become a cornerstone of the second Trump administration’s policy. This has prompted tech companies like NVIDIA to announce billion dollar investments in domestic chips and supercomputer manufacturing.
- On December 12, 2025, as Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Helberg launched Pax Silica—a U.S.-led initiative to build AI supply chains to help the country win the AI race—alongside representatives from Australia, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. Since then, others have joined Pax Silica as signatories, including Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Kazakhstan, Norway, Panama, the Philippines, Qatar, and Sweden. Taiwan is a non-signatory participant in the initiative.
- In March 2026, Helberg announced the creation of a Pax Silica fund, which plans to “leverage Pax Silica’s leading private sector partners and sovereign signatories” to invest $4 trillion in energy projects, critical minerals extraction, and semiconductor supply chains. The U.S. has already pledged $250 million towards the fund. Additional investments are set to come from SoftBank, a Japanese investment company and partner to the Trump-endorsed Stargate data center project;Temasek, a Singaporean state-owned investment firm; and Mubadala Investment Co., an Abu Dhabi-owned investment platform, as well as Pax Silica signatories like Singapore, Sweden, Qatar, and the UAE.
Government Affairs
- Helberg drummed up support for the 2024 TikTok bill, known as the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, that required TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to a U.S. company in order to avoid being banned. Helberg’s lobbying campaign began in 2022 with a dinner he organized in DC’s Embassy Row, which brought together legislators and the Silicon Valley crowd. From there, more dinners were hosted, which according to the Washington Post, “became a quiet back channel between some of the most influential Silicon Valley leaders and like-minded lawmakers[.]” Throughout 2023 and 2024, Helberg’s seat on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission gave him direct access to Congress members, allowing him to shore up more support for the TikTok bill. In April 2024, the same month Biden signed the TikTok bill, Helberg co-signed a full page ad in the New York Times describing TikTok as a Chinese “weapon of war” and arranged a Silicon Valley visit for House Speaker, Mike Johnson (R-LA). According to Puck news, Johnson’s visit marked his “very first pilgrimage to genuflect before the technorati.” Helberg later thanked Johnson, among other lawmakers, for shepherding the TikTok bill through Congress.
State Level Action
- Helberg is advocating for federal preemption of state AI laws. He wrote an essay for The Republic, a journal published by the Palantir Foundation, arguing in favor of preemption and disapproving of California’s SB 1047. The California bill would have required large developers to perform safety tests on AI models but was vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom after aggressive lobbying by the AI industry.
Image: Jacob Helberg at the Digital-Life-Design Munich Conference on January 13, 2024. “DLD Munich 24” by Hubert Burda Media, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
For more check out AI Villains and The Trump Administration