White House taps Michael Kratsios, formerly chief of staff at Thiel Capital, as deputy CTO
Peter Thiel has been at Donald Trump's side since the Republican National Convention, guiding the then-candidate on technology policy and brokering a meeting between him and top tech executives.
Context & Ripple Effects
This appointment is the payoff to Peter Thiel's post-election staffing push: after sources described how Thiel struggled to recruit the tech elite and turned to Max Levchin for advice over a shortlist that included Blake Masters and Joe Lonsdale, the White House instead reached into Thiel's own firm, naming his chief of staff at Thiel Capital to the number-two technology job.
Kratsios arrives at an Office of Science and Technology Policy that later reporting shows was running with roughly 45 staff and no Senate-confirmed director — meaning the deputy CTO seat carried unusual weight. The move proved durable: Trump went on to nominate him as the country's first US CTO, and by 2025 he was the Senate-confirmed OSTP Director framing US AI policy against Beijing.
First-order effects
- Thiel converts advisory proximity into institutional power: his former chief of staff now sits inside the White House's science and technology apparatus, giving Thiel Capital alumni a direct policy channel.
- OSTP's director-less structure means Kratsios inherits day-to-day control of a ~45-person office immediately, not after a confirmation fight.
Second-order effects
- Other venture firms gain a template for state access — a16z's Scott Kupor later follows the same path into government as OPM director, suggesting VC-to-government placement is repeatable rather than a one-off favor.
- Tech executives who declined to join the administration get representation anyway: policy input flows through Thiel-network appointees rather than the broad industry coalition Thiel originally tried and failed to assemble.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, US technology policy leadership consolidates around a small set of venture-capital networks whose personnel persist across administrations — Kratsios's eight-year arc from deputy CTO to confirmed OSTP Director shows the pipeline compounds rather than resets.
- That consolidation positions venture-backed views of AI competition, including countering Beijing, as the default frame inside OSTP, narrowing whose interests federal tech policy structurally represents.
The trend: US technology policy is increasingly staffed through personal venture-capital networks rather than industry-wide coalitions, with Thiel-linked appointees turning advisory roles into durable institutional control.