David Sacks sold $200 million in crypto-related holdings before taking White House job, ethics memo says
David Sacks, the Trump administration's AI and crypto czar, sold over $200 million worth of digital asset-related investments personally and through his firm, Craft Ventures, before starting the job, according to a memo from the White House.
Of the the assets sold, the documents said that at least $85 million 'is directly attributable to Sacks.' The memo, from White House counsel David Warrington, added that Craft remains an investor in some other funds that have digital assets in their portfolios.
The disclosure, dated March 5, is 11 pages long, compared to the two-page document from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the newly installed secretary of Health and Human Services. Sacks' divestments mark a stark contrast to the behavior of others in the administration, and follow the first Trump term, during which conflicts of interest were routinely disregarded.
President Trump, in addition to his many real estate assets, currently maintains a major stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, the publicly traded parent of Truth Social, and has launched multiple crypto projects that can rise or fall in value based on various government policies. And Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who also controls SpaceX, social media company X and AI startup xAI, is in position, as one of the president's top advisers, to shape regulations in a way that potentially favor his businesses.
Three days before his inauguration, President Trump launched a memetoken dubbed $TRUMP through his company, CIC Digital LLC, which owns 80% of the coin's supply. The Trump family also receives 75% of proceeds from a separate crypto bank launched last year called World Liberty Financial.
Musk, meanwhile, who is heading up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, counts on government contracts, particularly at SpaceX. The company, for example, has a $1.8 billion contract with the National Reconnaissance Office to build a network of spy satellites.
Beyond Trump and Musk, reports indicate that several cabinet members hold substantial investments in various cryptocurrencies. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who recently departed his role leading Cantor Fitzgerald, has reportedly made hundreds of millions of dollars from its ties to tether.
Representatives for Musk, the White House and from the Commerce Department didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sacks' divestments
Sacks, who became a well-known national figure as one of the four hosts of the popular All-In podcast, said in an episode of the show last week that he had sold roughly $200 million in crypto 'because I didn't want to even have the appearance of a conflict.'
He was responding to criticism that had been levied by numerous public officials, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. Warren sent a letter to Sacks ahead of last week's first-ever White House Crypto Summit, raising conflict-of-interest concerns and calling on Sacks to disclose any financial holdings in bitcoin, ether, solana, and other assets included in Trump's initial proposal for a strategic reserve.
When President Trump finally signed an executive order on the matter on March 6, he said the U.S. was establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve that would not include other digital currencies. Sacks said the reserve would be funded exclusively through tokens seized in criminal and civil forfeiture cases, ensuring no taxpayer burden. The order also created a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, managed by the Treasury Department, to hold other confiscated cryptocurrencies.
According to Sacks' ethics disclosure, he and his venture firm sold off all their liquid cryptocurrency holdings, including bitcoin, ether, and solana, as well as his directly held position in the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund and shares in Coinbase and Robinhood.
Sacks also began liquidating his stake in private digital asset companies, including his limited partner interest in crypto-focused investment funds such as Multicoin Capital and Blockchain Capital.
There are still a handful of digital asset-related holdings in his portfolio. Collectively, these holdings amount to less than 0.1% of his total investment assets, with their sale described as 'certain and imminent.'
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