Musk Connections: Firm invested in SpaceX, xAI, and $400 million in Musk’s X (formerly Twitter)
Other Corporate Affiliations: Co-Founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz
DOGE Deployment: Unofficial advisor
DOGE ARCHITECT
- As early as December 2024, Andreessen was involved with interviewing and recruiting candidates for DOGE. In a January interview with the Hoover Institution, Andreessen called himself DOGE’s “unpaid intern.”
- Andreessen called DC’s federal buildings a “ghost town” and said a return-to-office policy was a top priority for DOGE. The Office of Personnel Management issued two memo’s to the heads of federal agencies requiring submission of plans to comply with return-to-office directives, regardless of union contracts that guarantee telework provisions.
- Andreessen said that impoundment of Congressionally appropriated funds is a “significant constitutional debate” that the Supreme Court should look at. Trump initiated this process by issuing a freeze on federal grants, loans, and foreign aid, which has been challenged in court.
- Andreessen defended cuts to “bulletproof” federal programs like funding for children with disabilities in schools, stating that the program has “run completely out of control” because “students […] fake diagnoses of mental illness in order to get drugs and in order to get extra time on tests.”
- Read: Andreesen’s New York Times interview on Big Tech’s coziness with Trump.
- Scott Kupor, a long-time Andreessen co-worker and managing partner of Andreessen Horowitz, was nominated to lead the Office of Personnel Management.
ANDREESSEN PUSHED FOR AI USE IN GOVERNMENT AND IS HEAVILY INVESTED IN AI COMPANIES MARKETED FOR GOVERNMENT USE—CLEAR CONFLICTS WITH HIS INVOLVEMENT IN DOGE
- In his Substack titled Why AI Will Save The World, Andreessen predicted that every government official will have an AI assistant. Andreessen suggested that government regulation of AI was a driving force of inequality.
- Andreessen Horowitz invested in Instabase, an AI company focused on automating personnel processes and document reading. Instabase marketed its technology to the public sector, even completing a pilot program with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
- Andreessen Horowitz invested in OpenAI, a top artificial intelligence company that partnered with the Trump administration on a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure. OpenAI developed ChatGPT Gov for use by federal agencies.
ANDREESSEN INVESTED IN SYNAPSE—A NOW-BANKRUPT FINTECH COMPANY—AND ATTACKED THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU AS “TERRORIZING” FINTECH
- Andreessen Horowitz invested in Synapse, a financial technology company that acted as a middleman for other tech start ups and banks. Synapse was responsible for tracking balances of customer funds, but filed for bankruptcy after failing to account for $90 million of customers holdings. As a fintech platform, rather than a bank, these funds were not FDIC insured.
- In an interview with Joe Rogan, Andreessen claimed that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was “terrorizing” financial tech startups in order to protect big banks. Andreessen also claimed the CFPB was “debanking” people for political reasons. On the contrary, former CFPB Chair Rohit Chopra had spoken out against debanking for political reasons, saying banks should only close accounts for reasonable business or legal reasons.