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After famed investor Marc Andreessen met with government officials about the future of technology last May, he was “very scared” and described the meetings as “very scary.” Those meetings played a major role in why he supported Trump, he told journalist Barry Weiss this week on her podcast.
What frightened him most was what some said about the government’s role in artificial intelligence, and what he described as young employees who were “radicalized” and “bloodthirsty” and whose political ideas would “harm” his interests and those of Silicon Valley.
He comes away believing that they support government control of AI to the point of becoming market makers, allowing only two companies that cooperate with the government to flourish. He felt they discouraged his investments in artificial intelligence. “They told us frankly: Don’t do AI startups, don’t fund AI startups,” he said.
Obviously we do not know how other people at the meeting will remember such discussions, or even who they met. But we can understand why such ideas might be particularly scary for Andreessen: his company has backed AI startups like Elon Musk’s xAI, Mistral AI, and Actor.AI.
It is worth noting that in June 2023, long before these meetings, Andreessen published An AI statement titled “Why AI Will Save the World” warned against regulating AI. So this is an area that has been on his mind for a while.
Publicly, the administration has taken less stringent action on AI than Andreessen reported. In October 2023, President Joe Biden issued an executive order containing a series of voluntary commitments that AI companies must follow. This included requiring companies to share safety test results with the government and calling on Congress to evaluate how AI companies collect data.
The request received mixed reviews from Silicon Valley at the time. OpenAI’s Sam Altman said in a tweet that while there are “some great parts” to this initiative, “it will be important not to slow down innovation by smaller companies/research teams.”
So far, the incoming administration has indicated its plans to engage well with emerging AI companies. Earlier this month, Trump announced that VC investor David Sacks would be his AI and cryptocurrency lead, after which both Altman and Perplexity confirmed they would donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. “President Trump will lead our country into the age of artificial intelligence, and I am eager to support his efforts to ensure America stays ahead of the curve,” Altman said in a statement. Bloomberg News.
Andreessen himself has spent about half his time at Mar-a-Lago since the election. He confirmed to VICE speculation that he had participated in Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative, describing himself as an “unpaid volunteer.” He also said that at Mar-a-Lago he “participated in some of the interviewing of some of the incoming officials.”
Andreessen said he felt hopeful about Trump’s approach to technology, saying Trump told him: “I don’t know much about technology, but I don’t need to, because you guys know a lot about it. You guys should go build tech companies. American tech companies should To win.”
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