The Fox and the Henhouse: Trump Fills His Science Council With Tech Billionaires Who Have Billions at Stake

On March 25, 2026, the White House announced the first 13 appointments to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a body established by executive order in January 2025 to advise the president on "opportunities and challenges that emerging technologies present to the American workforce" [1]. The roster reads like a who's who of Silicon Valley and beyond: Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, AMD's Lisa Su, Dell's Michael Dell, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, among others [2].

The council will be co-chaired by David Sacks, Trump's AI and crypto adviser, and Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy [1]. It can expand to 24 members and is authorized for two years, with funding and administrative support from the Department of Energy [3].

What the White House describes as assembling "the Nation's foremost luminaries in science and technology" [1], critics see as something else entirely: handing the keys of tech policy to executives whose companies have trillions of dollars riding on the outcomes.

Who's on the Council—and What's Missing

The full list of appointees includes Marc Andreessen (venture capitalist), Sergey Brin (Google co-founder), Safra Catz (Oracle executive vice chair), Michael Dell (Dell Technologies), Jacob DeWitte (Oklo CEO, a nuclear energy startup), Fred Ehrsam (Coinbase co-founder), Larry Ellison (Oracle), David Friedberg (Ohalo Genetics CEO), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), John Martinis (UC Santa Barbara physicist), Bob Mumgaard (Commonwealth Fusion Systems CEO), Lisa Su (AMD), and Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) [2].

Several features of this list stand out. First, the overwhelming tilt toward corporate leadership: of 13 members, only one—John Martinis, a professor emeritus—comes from academia. Biden's PCAST, by contrast, was co-chaired by scientists and was described as "the most diverse council in its history, with women comprising half of the members and people of color and immigrants making up more than one-third" [4]. Obama's PCAST was co-chaired by John Holdren and Eric Lander, both career scientists [4].

Second, two members—Ellison and Catz—come from the same company, Oracle. That's unusual for an advisory body nominally designed to represent diverse perspectives across the technology sector.

Third, several appointees have direct financial ties to administration priorities. Fred Ehrsam co-founded Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, and serves alongside Sacks, who has been described by the New York Times as still invested in 449 companies with AI products [5]. DeWitte runs Oklo, a nuclear startup in which venture capitalist Sam Altman has been a major investor—a company directly affected by federal energy permitting policy.

The Money: Market Power and Political Spending

The financial scale of the companies represented on PCAST is staggering. Nvidia alone has a market capitalization of approximately $4.3 trillion as of March 2026 [6]. Meta's market cap hovers around $1.8 trillion. Oracle sits at roughly $444 billion [6]. Combined, the companies led by just Zuckerberg, Ellison, and Huang are worth well over $6 trillion—more than the GDP of every country except the United States and China.

These companies have also poured money into Washington influence operations. Meta spent a record $26.29 million on federal lobbying in 2025, deploying 89 lobbyists—roughly one for every six members of Congress [7]. Nvidia's lobbying expenditures grew eightfold in a single year, from $640,000 in 2024 to nearly $5 million in 2025 [7]. Oracle lobbyists have targeted the White House, National Security Council, Department of Justice, Department of Commerce, and Treasury Department, among other agencies [8].

On the political contributions front, Oracle founder Larry Ellison has donated more than $30 million since 2021 to Opportunity Matters Fund, a Republican political action committee [8]. Former Oracle CEO Safra Catz—now also a PCAST member—gave $1 million to Preserve America PAC, a super PAC that spent over $112 million to support Trump [8]. Meta, along with other major tech companies, pledged to donate funds to rebuild the White House ballroom, a stated priority of the president [8].

Source: OpenSecrets / Issue One

Data as of Mar 25, 2026CSV

What's at Stake: Regulatory Proceedings and Federal Business

Each of the three headline appointees leads a company with active regulatory exposure before the Trump administration.

Meta won a major victory in November 2025 when a federal judge rejected the FTC's monopolization case alleging that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were anticompetitive [9]. The FTC filed a notice of appeal in January 2026, with oral arguments expected by late summer or autumn 2026 [10]. The Trump administration's posture toward that appeal—and the broader question of antitrust enforcement against social media companies—will directly affect Meta's corporate structure and valuation.

Nvidia faces a Department of Justice antitrust probe into its dominance of the AI chip market [11]. Separately, the company is at the center of the most consequential trade policy debate in tech: AI chip export controls to China. In January 2026, the Bureau of Industry and Security revised its license review for H200 chips from "presumption of denial" to "case-by-case review," and Huang announced at Nvidia's GTC conference that the company has received purchase orders from Chinese customers [12]. A bipartisan group in Congress has pushed back, with some lawmakers introducing legislation to require congressional review of such export licenses [13]. Legal scholars at Lawfare have argued that the administration's demand that Nvidia pay a cut of its China sales in exchange for export licenses is illegal under the Export Control Reform Act [14].

Oracle secured a 15% stake in the TikTok U.S. joint venture in January 2026 as the platform's designated "security partner," managing data audits and algorithm retraining under U.S. jurisdiction [15]. That deal was brokered by the Trump administration after it reversed congressional divestment requirements. Oracle's cloud infrastructure business stands to gain substantially from this arrangement—and from any future federal cloud computing contracts the company pursues.

Zuckerberg's Transformation: From Threat of Prison to Presidential Adviser

Perhaps no appointment better illustrates the transactional nature of this council than Zuckerberg's. The trajectory from adversary to adviser was neither gradual nor subtle.

In his 2024 book Save America, Trump wrote that Zuckerberg would "spend the rest of his life in prison" over the CEO's donations to election infrastructure during the 2020 cycle, which conservatives branded "Zuckerbucks" [16]. On Truth Social, Trump posted about pursuing "Election Fraudsters" and warned: "ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!" [16].

The thaw began in July 2024, when Zuckerberg praised Trump's response to the assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally as "one of the most badass things I've ever seen in my life" [16]. By November 2024, Zuckerberg attended Thanksgiving dinner at Mar-a-Lago [17].

The corporate policy shifts followed in rapid succession. On January 7, 2025, Meta announced it would end its third-party fact-checking program, with Zuckerberg framing it as a return to "free expression" and a response to a "cultural tipping point" represented by Trump's election [18]. Three days later, Meta terminated its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs [17]. The company promoted Joel Kaplan, a Republican who served in the George W. Bush White House, to head of global policy, replacing Nick Clegg [17]. It added UFC CEO Dana White, a longtime Trump ally, to its board of directors [17].

Meta insiders quoted by Yahoo Finance described Zuckerberg as "a chameleon" [19]. A CNBC analysis characterized the changes as Meta having to "bend the knee to Trump" [20]. Zuckerberg himself has framed the relationship in business terms, telling Fortune that "misspending a couple of hundred billion" in the U.S. would be "unfortunate," but that "the risk is higher on the other side" [21]—an apparent reference to the cost of antagonizing the administration.

By 2025, Zuckerberg had pledged that Meta would invest "at least $600 billion through 2028" in U.S. infrastructure [22]. Trump now routinely meets with Zuckerberg at the White House, and reporting from Platformer documented that the executive branch has been "aggressively pursuing Meta's anti-regulation agenda both in the United States and abroad" [22].

The Ethics Gap: FACA, Waivers, and What's Not Required

PCAST operates under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), a 1972 law that requires advisory committee meetings to be open to the public, announced in the Federal Register at least 15 days in advance, and accompanied by published agendas [23]. The law also requires that advisory committees maintain "balanced" membership representing diverse viewpoints [24].

However, FACA contains significant loopholes. Meetings can be closed under 10 exemptions borrowed from the Sunshine Act, including discussions involving proprietary commercial information [23]. "Preparatory or administrative work" sessions are exempt from open-meeting requirements entirely [23]. And critically, PCAST members serve as outside advisers, not government employees, which means they are not subject to the same financial disclosure and conflict-of-interest rules that apply to executive branch officials under 18 U.S.C. § 208 [25].

The ethics questions surrounding PCAST are amplified by the status of its co-chair. David Sacks received a financial conflict-of-interest waiver from the White House as a Special Government Employee (SGE) in March 2025 [5]. He divested over $200 million in digital asset holdings. But an NPR investigation found that he still controls "more than 400 investments in AI-related tech companies" that stand to benefit from his policy recommendations [5]. Senator Elizabeth Warren and other members of Congress launched a formal investigation into whether Sacks has exceeded the 130-day term limit for SGEs, which would subject him to stricter ethics rules [26].

A concrete example of the concern: Sacks' firm Craft Ventures invested in BitGo, a crypto company that works with stablecoin issuers. In his official role, Sacks advocated for the GENIUS Act, which provided regulatory guidance for stablecoin companies. After the legislation advanced, BitGo filed for an IPO [5].

For the PCAST members themselves, there is no requirement to divest holdings, no mandatory recusal process for topics affecting their companies, and no public disclosure of which members advocate for which policy positions in closed-door sessions. This stands in contrast to the requirements for full-time government appointees, who must file public financial disclosures and recuse themselves from matters affecting their financial interests [25].

Historical Context: Advisory Panels Past and Present

Every president since Franklin Roosevelt has maintained some version of a science advisory body [4]. But the composition and orientation of these panels has varied significantly.

Obama's PCAST produced concrete policy outcomes: a 2012 report on spectrum sharing led to a Presidential Memorandum and eventually FCC approval of a Citizens Broadband Radio Service band in 2016; a 2014 report on antibiotic resistance led to an executive order and a National Strategy; a 2015 report on hearing loss informed the FDA's move toward over-the-counter hearing aids [27].

Biden's PCAST focused on pandemic lessons, climate change, and equitable access to scientific advances, with membership drawn heavily from academia and research institutions [4].

Trump's first-term advisory councils had a rockier history. His Strategic and Policy Forum and Manufacturing Jobs Initiative both dissolved in August 2017 after multiple CEOs resigned in protest over Trump's response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The current PCAST differs from its predecessors not just in composition but in scope. Its mandate explicitly includes AI policy, digital assets, and workforce impacts of automation—areas where every member's company has direct commercial interests. Previous iterations tended to focus on basic science, public health, and broad technology trends where panelists' companies had less direct financial exposure.

The Constitutional and Free-Market Objections

The criticism of government-industry advisory relationships is not confined to the political left. Libertarian and free-market scholars have long argued that such arrangements create structural incentives for cronyism.

The American Enterprise Institute has warned that "libertarians must stand up to corporate greed" enabled by government-business entanglement [28]. The Cato Institute's affiliated libertarianism.org has described cronyism as "a toxic friendship between business and government," arguing that it distorts markets by giving politically connected firms advantages that competitors cannot match [29].

Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, has written that critics of cronyism "continue to miss the point" when they focus on individual bad actors rather than the structural incentives that make such relationships inevitable whenever government has the power to pick winners [30].

The free-market argument is not that advisory panels should never exist, but that their legitimacy depends on transparency, limited scope, and—critically—the absence of direct regulatory authority over the industries represented by their members. When the same body that advises on AI chip export policy includes the CEO of the world's dominant AI chip company, the structural incentive problem is not theoretical.

What Happens Next: Policy Areas and Oversight

The policy areas where PCAST is expected to weigh in overlap almost entirely with the commercial interests of its members:

• AI chip export controls: Nvidia and AMD have billions in revenue at stake in China sales. The BIS rule change in January 2026 already moved in Nvidia's favor [12].
• AI regulation: Trump's December 2025 executive order blocked state-level AI safety protections, despite polling showing roughly 80% of Americans support such regulations [7]. PCAST members from AI-dependent companies stand to benefit from continued federal preemption.
• Section 230 and content moderation: Meta's business model depends on liability protections for user-generated content. Any reform effort will pass through the same policy channels where Zuckerberg now has a formal advisory role.
• Federal cloud computing: Oracle's cloud business and its TikTok security partnership give it a direct stake in federal procurement decisions [15].
• Cryptocurrency regulation: Coinbase co-founder Ehrsam and co-chair Sacks have personal and institutional investments in digital assets [5].

Under FACA, the public can submit comments to advisory committees, and committee records are generally subject to the Freedom of Information Act [23]. But congressional oversight of PCAST recommendations is limited. The council's output is advisory—its recommendations do not require legislative approval, public comment periods, or environmental review. There is no formal mechanism for publishing dissenting opinions from members who disagree with majority recommendations.

Source: FRED / S&P Dow Jones Indices

Data as of Mar 24, 2026CSV

The Bigger Picture

The question raised by these appointments is not whether tech executives should have input on technology policy—few would argue they shouldn't. The question is whether an advisory structure that places executives with trillions of dollars at stake in a room where they can shape the regulations, trade policies, and enforcement actions that determine their profits is sufficiently different from direct lobbying to justify the imprimatur of presidential authority.

Meta spent $26.29 million on lobbying in 2025 [7]. Nvidia spent nearly $5 million [7]. That money buys access to legislators and regulators. PCAST membership, by contrast, provides something money alone cannot: a formal channel to the president, co-chaired by an official who himself retains hundreds of AI investments [5], with meetings that can be closed to the public and no requirement that members recuse themselves from discussions affecting their companies.

The panel's defenders argue that effective technology policy requires the participation of people who actually build and deploy technology. Michael Kratsios, PCAST's co-chair, has framed the appointments as essential to "ensuring all Americans thrive in the Golden Age of Innovation" [1]. Supporters point to the historical precedent: every modern president has maintained some version of this council, and industry participation has been the norm, not the exception.

But the scale is different now. The combined market power of the companies represented on this council exceeds that of any previous advisory panel by orders of magnitude. The regulatory stakes—export controls, antitrust enforcement, platform liability, cryptocurrency rules—are more direct and more financially consequential. And the ethics infrastructure, designed for an era when advisory panels discussed spectrum allocation and antibiotic resistance, has not kept pace.

Whether this council produces good policy or serves primarily as a mechanism for regulatory capture will depend on details that are not yet public: which topics are discussed, who advocates for what positions, which recommendations become policy, and whether the public ever learns the answers to those questions.