Michael Kratsios

Branch: ExecutiveAgency or Office Type: Executive Office of the PresidentAgency or Office: Office of Science and Technology PolicyAppointment Status: Pending Senate ConfirmationCharacteristic(s): Trump 2.0 Cabinet Member, Trump 1.0 Appointee

Michael Kratsios is Trump’s nominee for Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Kratsios previously served as the fourth U.S. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering during the Trump administration. At a Catholic University of America event, Kratsios argued for minimal government regulation of AI tooling, calling it a “born-free technology” like the internet, supporting instead regulating individual AI use cases. Kratsios has argued against treating AI like an existential risk, characterizing such framing as “pretty overblown” and instead saying, “we’ve gone through a number of technological transformations over, over the last, you know, many many many centuries, and this is just another one…”. He has criticized the European Union’s regulatory approach, describing it as “a push by Europe to continue to try to contain the growth of this stuff” and warning it risks stifling innovation.

According to his Wikipedia profile, Michael Kratsios was a college intern for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham. Kratsios went on to work at Barclays Capital and Lyford Group International before becoming Chief Financial Officer at Clarium Capital Management, a hedge fund founded by Peter Thiel. He later joined Thiel Capital as Principal and Chief of Staff, overseeing investment strategies and working closely with the influential venture capitalist. His work at Thiel-affiliated ventures and his board membership with the Foundation for American Innovation, funded by the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Searle Freedom Trust, Lynde and Harry Bradley, and Diana Davis Spencer foundations, underscore his alignment with the tech sector’s embrace of MAGA bedfellows.

Kratsios joined the Trump administration in 2017 as Deputy Assistant to the President for Technology Policy. He was later nominated and unanimously confirmed as the fourth U.S. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and an associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. During his tenure, he led initiatives to promote U.S. leadership in emerging technologies, including the American AI Initiative and the bipartisan National Quantum Initiative Act. In 2020, Kratsios served as Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, managing a $106 billion research and development budget and overseeing critical defense agencies such as DARPA and the Missile Defense Agency, according to his Wikipedia profile. Per the archived Trump White House AI.gov site, the first Trump administration prioritized investment in AI and supercomputing, especially around defense and national security use cases: “On December 18, 2017, President Trump signed a new National Security Strategy that calls on America to lead in research, technology, invention, and innovation in emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. The Trump Administration’s commitment to AI is exemplified in the National Defense Strategy, where the Administration states its intent to invest broadly in military application of AI and machine learning alongside other emerging technologies. The Administration’s commitment to advanced AI R&D is evident in the FY 2020 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities memo, which calls for investment in AI, quantum information science, and strategic computing as critical components of our national security.

In June 2018, the DoD established the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) to serve as the focal point in the use of AI for key defense missions. The JAIC accelerates the delivery of AI-enabled capabilities, scales the DoD-wide impact of AI, and synchronizes the DoD’s AI activities. The JAIC further aims to spur momentum in the use of AI for DoD by focusing on a set of challenging use cases that can benefit from AI, including perception, predictive maintenance, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and cyber sensemaking, all detailed at ai.mil. The JAIC’s mission is to both deliver new AI-enabled capabilities to DoD end users, as well as to incrementally develop a common foundation of shared data, reusable tools, frameworks, libraries, and standards that are essential for scaling the impact of AI across DoD.

In February 2019, the Department of Defense released its DoD AI Strategy, which focuses efforts on harnessing AI to advance our Nation’s security and prosperity. The DoD AI Strategy defines the JAIC as the focal point of DoD’s AI efforts, and outlines on the following key strategic aims: delivering AI-enabled capabilities for key missions; partnering with leading private sector technology companies, academia, and global allies; cultivating a leading AI workforce; and leading in military ethics and AI safety.

Similarly in the intelligence community (IC), the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released in January 2019 the Augmenting Intelligence using Machines (AIM) Initiative. With scale in mind, the IC is enhancing its ability to provide much-needed data interpretation to decision makers across government.”

Beyond shaping the first Trump administration’s AI strategy and investment, Kratsios led efforts to advance 5G testing and awarded $50 million in grants to historically Black colleges and minority-serving institutions to support research in defense priority areas. After leaving government, Kratsios joined Scale AI as Managing Director and Head of Strategy, focusing on advancing artificial intelligence in both national security and commercial sectors. Per Inc.’s reporting, “Kratsios served as the Department of Defense’s under secretary of defense for research and engineering from 2020 until 2021, when he left government to begin working at Scale. The following year, Scale agreed to a $250 million contract with the Department of Defense Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.” Rebuking DEI, Kratsios’ firm Scale AI, employs “MEI: merit, excellence, and intelligence” as its hiring philosophy.

Kratsios has advocated for strengthening U.S. leadership in AI and countering adversaries like China. He emphasized that adversaries are running full speed to weaponize AI: “if you’re an adversary, you now essentially have an exquisite tool that can create an infinite amount of super high-quality information pollution.” Kratsios has pushed for U.S. dominance in AI to prevent unsafe models from being deployed by hostile nations, stating, “if we try to restrict the progress in some ways of some of these large language model developers, you know, we know our adversaries aren’t…”. He has also defended export controls on high-end GPUs to limit Chinese access, warning that the U.S. must act quickly: “The window where we have this advantage is not infinite.” If confirmed, Kratsios could pick up where the first Trump term left off, advancing Trump’s anti-China policy agenda, expanding deregulated private-sector leadership, and further integrating emerging technologies into national security strategies.