Something interesting just happened in the Trump administration. David Sacks, the venture investor who became the face of the pro-crypto shift in the U.S. government, is making a strategic move. He officially stepped down from his role as crypto and AI czar, a position that didn’t even exist before his appointment.

The reason is quite simple: government special employees can only work 130 days within a 12-month period. David Sacks told Bloomberg that he had already exhausted that time. But here’s the interesting part: he’s not leaving. He’s moving laterally to the Presidential Council of Science and Technology, where he is now co-chair.

This role change is more than an administrative move. On the PCAST, David Sacks will have a broader platform to influence technology policy. No longer just crypto and AI, but a wider range of technological issues. The council includes up to 24 industry members and was created in 2001. Its job is basically to prepare policy recommendations for the administration.

What makes this notable is who else is on the council. Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of one of the major crypto exchanges, is there. Marc Andreessen from the a16z fund also joined. According to David Sacks, this PCAST has “the greatest pull of any group like this that has ever been formed.” Translation: the tech and crypto industry has real influence here.

Now, what did David Sacks actually accomplish during his time as czar? Quite a lot, according to the record. He oversaw the appointment of two key commissioners at the SEC and CFTC. With Paul Atkins at the SEC, enforcement actions against the industry fell 60% year-over-year in 2025. The new CFTC commissioner, Mike Selig, has been promoting prediction markets. And David Sacks also helped structure the legislation on stablecoins that was consolidated in 2025, the so-called Genius Act, which placed stablecoins under clear federal oversight.

Essentially, David Sacks helped reposition the crypto industry from being the government’s enemy to being part of the central political conversation. Bo Hines, who worked with him on the White House Crypto Council before leaving for Tether in August, summed it up well: “Together, we’ve positioned the United States as the crypto capital of the world.”

This move to PCAST probably means that crypto influence in Washington isn’t going to decrease. David Sacks simply changed his mode of operation. And with that group of people on the council, decisions about technology in the coming years are going to have a pretty crypto-friendly flavor.