Trump appoints Silicon Valley executives to take key management roles

President-elect Donald Trump is tapping top tech figures to join his new administration, continuing a trend of Silicon Valley's growing influence in Trump's second White House.

Trump said on Sunday that he would nominate Scott Kubor, a managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, to be director of the Office of Personnel Management, which coordinates hiring and provides resources for government employees.

Kubor thanked Trump in a post on X and said the opportunity would allow him to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in their leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a startup commission aimed at cutting government spending and regulation.

Trump also selected Sriram Krishnan for the position of senior artificial intelligence policy advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Krishnan, who most recently served as General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, has a long career in technology, with roles in Microsoft, deadTwitter, pop And Yahoo. He has previous relationships with Musk, as she helped him “temporarily” manage the social media service X after Musk acquired the platform, formerly known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022.

Musk, the tech billionaire who was a major donor to Trump and his most vocal supporter during his election campaign, has emerged as one of the president-elect's closest advisors. His outsized influence over Trump has led to growing consternation among Democrats, foreign leaders and business executives, some of whom compete with Musk's companies. Musk, along with X, runs a vehicle manufacturing company TeslaDefense contractor SpaceX and brain technology startup Neuralink.

Krishnan will likely work closely with David Sachs, another tech executive who has a long history with Musk. Trump earlier this month appointed Sachs — a former venture capitalist PayPal COO and popular podcaster – as the “Czar” of Cryptocurrency and AI.

On Sunday, Trump also chose Ken Horry, one of the founders of PayPal and Founders Fund, to be the US ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark. He appointed Michael Kratsios, who was most recently managing director of technology startup Scale AI, as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Kratsios served as chief technology officer during the first Trump administration.

In addition, Trump appointed former Uber Executive Emil Michael, Vice President for Research and Engineering.

Tech business leaders have welcomed the options in social media posts. Former Meta CEO David Marcus called Trump's picks “fantastic picks,” while Box CEO Aaron Levy said the picks were “very strong.”

Since Trump's election victory, a slew of tech companies have thrown their support behind the president-elect — a major departure from his first term, when the industry generally maintained a tense relationship with Trump.

AmazonMeta and OpenAI Sam Altman announced $1 million in donations to Trump's inauguration committee. In recent weeks, Silicon Valley executives have made visits to Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.