U.S. President Donald Trump sits next to Crypto czar David Sacks at the White House Crypto Summit at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 7, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
What was meant to be a short-term assignment for venture capitalist David Sacks in President Donald Trump’s White House appears to have stretched into something much bigger, according to leading Democratic lawmakers.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., have teamed up with a number of other progressive politicians to question whether Sacks has blown past the 130-day limit for Special Government Employees.
In a letter delivered Wednesday morning, the lawmakers pressed Sacks to account for every day he has worked since his January start date, and to disclose where he’s conducted official business, and who inside the White House is monitoring his compliance.
They warned that overstaying the limit “would raise additional ethics concerns,” particularly as the Trump administration “moves to implement recently enacted cryptocurrency legislation and put in place new rules for the crypto industry.”
Sacks was tapped by President Trump as his “crypto and AI czar” to help shape policy in those industries. The SGE designation lets people from the private sector serve temporarily in government under looser conflict of interest rules.
In March, Sacks disclosed that he sold over $200 million worth of digital asset-related investments personally and through his firm, Craft Ventures, before starting the job, according to a memo from the White House.
Reports have suggested he’s been splitting his time between Washington and Silicon Valley to avoid hitting the cap, even as colleagues have said he has “no intention of leaving,” according to Semafor.
Warren and Stansbury argue that stretching the rules undermines the balance Congress struck when it created the SGE category. The probe also dovetails with their earlier legislation aimed at tightening transparency and ethics requirements for temporary government advisors.
Additional signees to the letter include Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal, Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, along with Representatives Betty McCollum and Rashida Tlaib.
The White House and Sacks did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the investigation.
WATCH: Musk, Altman rivalry escalates with new OpenAI hire
