David Sacks Sells $200M in Crypto Before Taking Office Amid Conflict-of-Interest
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David Sacks, the newly appointed AI and cryptocurrency affairs chief, has sold over $200 million in digital asset-related investments before taking office.
Sacks Sells $85 Million In Personal Crypto Holdings
A White House memo revealed that Sacks sold his cryptocurrency holdings through personal accounts and his company, Craft Ventures. This included at least $85 million of his own investments, while Craft Ventures still holds some crypto-related funds.
Notably, the disclosure, dated March 5, is 11 pages long, much longer than the two-page one from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new Health and Human Services secretary. Sacks’ sales of his assets are very different from others in the administration and come after Trump’s first term, where conflicts of interest were often ignored.
Sacks Responds To Criticisms
Sacks responded to criticism from officials like Senator Elizabeth Warren, who raised concerns about his financial ties to cryptocurrencies. Ahead of the White House Crypto Summit, Senator Warren sent a letter to Sacks, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest and urging him to disclose his holdings in bitcoin, ether, solana, and other assets linked to Trump’s strategic reserve proposal.
Sacks and his venture firm sold all their cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, ether, solana, and shares in Coinbase and Robinhood. He also started selling his stake in crypto investment funds like Multicoin Capital and Blockchain Capital. He still has a small amount of digital assets left, less than 0.1% of his total investments, and plans to sell them soon.
President Trump holds a major stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, and has launched several crypto projects that could be affected by government policies. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and other companies, is also one of Trump’s top advisers and could influence regulations to benefit his businesses.
Cabinet Members Hold Major Stakes
Just days before his inauguration, Trump launched a meme token called TRUMP through his company CIC Digital LLC, which controls 80% of the coin. The Trump family also gets 75% of the profits from a crypto bank called World Liberty Financial, launched last year.
Besides, Musk, heading DOGE, relies on government contracts like SpaceX’s $1.8 billion deal for spy satellites. Also, reports also show that several cabinet members, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, have significant investments in cryptocurrencies. Lutnick, who recently left Cantor Fitzgerald, reportedly made hundreds of millions through ties to Tether.
