Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Larry Ellison, and Sergey Brin will serve as the first four members of Trump's President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), with plans to expand from 13 to potentially 24 members. The panel will advise on AI policy, economy, education, and national security, co-chaired by AI czar David Sacks and tech advisor Michael Kratsios.
This isn't subtle. Trump spent the past year blocking states from regulating AI, and now he's putting the industry's biggest players directly in the policy driver's seat. Zuckerberg runs the company facing federal lawsuits over child safety while pushing AI across all Meta products. Huang leads the company that controls AI infrastructure and desperately needs favorable export rules for China. These aren't neutral advisors—they're executives with billions riding on light-touch regulation.
The composition tells the real story. Unlike Trump's first-term science panel, this one is dominated by AI industry leaders, not academic researchers or diverse tech voices. Ellison backed Trump's TikTok deal through Oracle, Zuckerberg attended the inauguration after years of regulatory battles, and all four have massive AI investments that benefit from federal support over state restrictions. The White House framed this as scientific advisory, but it looks more like regulatory capture.
For developers and AI companies, expect policies favoring scale over safety guardrails. Federal preemption of state AI laws becomes more likely, export controls on AI chips may loosen, and innovation-first rhetoric will dominate. If you're building AI tools, the regulatory environment just became more predictable—and more permissive.