Revolving Door Project | AI Villains and the Trump Administration: Michael Kratsios

Name: Michael Kratsios

Title: Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Prior to joining the first Trump administration in 2017, Kratsios was a principal and chief of staff at Thiel Capital, the investment firm of Palantir founder Peter Thiel. Kratsios also worked as chief financial officer at Thiel’s Clarium Capital Management from 2014-2015 where he oversaw “all operations and financial reporting.”

After the first Trump administration, Kratsios was the managing director of Scale AI, a data labeling and curation firm for artificial intelligence systems. Its clients included big tech firms like Google, Meta, and OpenAI, as well as the US military, Paypal, TIME Magazine, and General Motors.
- During the second Trump administration alone, Scale AI has been awarded seven contracts from the Department of Defense worth a total of $12.3 million.

Under the second Trump administration, as Director of White House Science and Technology Policy, Kratsios co-authored the White House AI Action Plan, which contained three pillars for the administration’s approach to the AI industry and implementation. The plan calls for the US to “accelerate AI innovation” by removing “onerous regulation” and fast-tracking adoption by the government, removal of permitting barriers for data center construction, and increased exportation of American AI products and chips, among other policy priorities.
- In November 2025, Kratsios helped introduce the White House’s Genesis Mission, which directed National Labs and the Department of Energy to feed its datasets into artificial intelligence models in order to “transform” and “accelerate” scientific discovery.

Kratsios serves with David Sacks as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which produces reports and policy recommendations for the President. PCAST is composed almost entirely of industry executives who have poured money into AI projects, or venture capitalists who are invested in AI start ups.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy also released a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence. While the framework white-washed its aims with sensible headers like “Safeguarding and Strengthening American Communities” and “Respecting Intellectual Property Rights and Supporting Creators,” the actual policies would likely do the opposite. The framework calls for streamlining AI infrastructure projects, which would entail removing avenues for communities to push back against such projects, and allowing artificial intelligence to be used for parody and satire of intellectual property.
- Kratsios also spearheaded the White House’s Tech Force initiative to hire technologists from the private sector into government agencies for two-year stints. The Tech Force will consist of around 1000 hirees, with employees coming from tech behemoths like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Palantir, and xAI.

Kratsios served as the Chief Technology Officer of the United States during the first Trump administration. As CTO, Kratsios was an early proponent of the federal government implementing artificial intelligence, particularly in detecting coronavirus and developing treatments. Kratsios also spearheaded the administration’s American AI Initiative, outlining its “light-touch” supervisory approach to the industry to avoid regulation that will “needlessly hamper AI innovation and growth.”
- Kratsios also led a White House initiative to invest $140 million in university institutes focused on AI. The projects included building “AI partners” for individualized instruction in the classroom and research into machine learning applications that underpin self driving cars.
- In July 2020, Kratsios was appointed as Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering at the Department of Defense where he oversaw the Pentagon’s research and development efforts.

In 2024, Scale AI spent $860,000 on lobbying, including $240,000 with Cornerstone Government Affairs, mainly on the National Defense Authorization Act.

In 2023, Scale AI spent $860,000 on lobbying efforts in the House, Senate, and Department of Defense. In addition to in-house lobbyists, Scale AI hired Cornerstone Government Affairs and the Halcrow Group to lobby on AI provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act.

In 2022, Scale AI spent $1,170,000 on lobbying efforts, including $120,000 with Ballard Partners, a firm with extensive connections to Trump. The firm’s alumni include former Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and former deputy director of personnel Trent Morse. Scale AI lobbied for “job creation with AI technology with public-private partnerships,” among other advocacy for government support of AI.

In 2021, under Kratsios’s leadership, Scale AI spent $340,000 lobbying the House, Senate, and Department of Defense on “the importance of data infrastructure to develop better artificial intelligence algorithms” and pushing for more AI programs in the National Defense Authorization Act.

AI Villains and the Trump Administration: Michael Kratsios