This question resolves YES to all the important named individuals that serve as AI policy officials to the White House in 2025.
Feel free to add answers in the form of full names of potential appointees.
This question is conditional on Donald Trump winning the 2024 US presidential election and resolves N/A if he personally does not win the election.
"in 2025" means people who become officials after the inauguration of the new President and before the end of 31 Dec 2025.
To be an “official” for “the White House” means that the person has an official title/office in the executive branch.
Being among the “important AI policy officials” means being directly involved in nationally significant artificial intelligence policy (e.g. domestic regulations, research funding, government adoption, international negotiations, drafting executive orders).
Anyone who is appointed to leadership roles specifically about AI policy (e.g. Director of AI Safety Institute) would count by virtue of their job. Anyone who is credibly reported on in the media as having personally drafted major AI policy or as having personally had a major influence on AI policy (e.g. by having the President’s ear on the issue specifically) would count.
Since “important” is hard to define, I will use reasonable judgement in deciding edge cases. To get a sense of what counts, below are some examples:
Examples of important AI policy officials that currently exist:
Director of the AI Safety Institute under NIST (perhaps the premier AI policy organ of the US government right now)
Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (is specifically charged with directly executing Biden’s AI order)
Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer at the Department of Defense (leads efforts to adopt AI at the DoD)
anyone reported as having helped draft an AI policy executive order (e.g. like how Bruce Reed was reported as having done)
Special Advisor on AI (e.g. like Ben Buchanan; has the President’s ear)
Examples of officials that do not count as they currently exist:
Secretary of Commerce (does not count because role is not sufficiently AI-specific)
Members of the National AI Advisory Committee (do not show up in news as having substantial influence as individuals)
National Cyber Director (though they deal with AI in the context of cybersecurity, their role in AI policy is too peripheral to their job)
The AI Safety Institute published a Substack post discussing potential Trump AI policy, mentioning Jacob Helberg as "a rising power broker between the GOP and tech leaders". Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz also mentioned as aligned with a potential Trump administration.