Latest news with #JamesBurnham
New York Post
7 days ago
- Business
- New York Post
Ex-DOGE lawyer launches AI policy council to push US to front of tech race with China
WASHINGTON — A former top lawyer at the Department of Government Efficiency launched a new artificial intelligence policy council on Wednesday, coinciding with executive actions by President Trump to deregulating the industry, The Post can reveal. James Burnham, who also held a senior position in the Department of Justice during Trump's first term, is founding the AI Innovation Council to push an 'America First' approach to AI and prevent China from winning the race for global tech dominance — both economically and militarily. 'Artificial intelligence is a revolutionary technology with the potential to make the United States wealthier and greater than it has ever been,' he said. Advertisement 3 The Department of Government Efficiency's former top lawyer James Burnham is launching a new artificial intelligence policy council on Wednesday to coincide with executive actions by the Trump administration. LinkedIn / James Burnham 'That's why President Trump made clear in his first week back in office that 'the policy of the United States is to sustain and enhance America's global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.' 'I have been as outspoken as anyone about the problems of Big Tech and monopoly power, but it's a major mistake to let legitimate concerns about past abuses block new innovators from propelling our nation into a new golden age.' Advertisement The new council will sketch out regulatory frameworks for AI and help boost US-based companies. 3 The 'AI Action Plan' will be touted by the president's czar on the issue, Silicon Valley billionaire David Sacks, and will further promote the 'export' of American AI tech abroad and build out data centers in the US. AP Trump, 79, is set to sign several AI-related executive orders Wednesday afternoon — including an expected action to curb 'woke' models. The 'AI Action Plan' will be touted by the president's AI czar, Silicon Valley billionaire David Sacks, and will further promote the 'export' of American tech abroad and build out data centers in the US. Advertisement Last week, Sacks joined Trump in announcing more than $100 billion in AI- and energy-related private sector investments at a forum in Pittsburgh. 3 Last week, Sacks joined Trump in announcing more than $100 billion in AI- and energy-related private sector investments at a forum in Pittsburgh. Getty Images The administration may also prevent states from taking too heavy a hand in regulating the industry, according to a summary seen by Reuters. Advertisement A proposed moratorium on state and local AI regulation was removed from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act by congressional Republicans before Trump signed it July 4. 'The goal isn't just to win the innovation race,' Burnham said. 'It's to help launch America's golden age.'
The Independent
30-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Top DOGE officials are already fleeing as Musk leaves government
Top officials at the Department of Government Efficiency are set to leave their roles following the departure of DOGE head Elon Musk. Three officials – adviser Steve Davis, adviser and spokesperson Katie Miller, and attorney James Burnham – are leaving the administration, a White House official told The Hill. Davis served in a leadership role at DOGE and has worked with Musk at several of his companies, including the Boring Company, SpaceX, and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Serving as DOGE's 'chief operating officer,' Davis spoke to Fox News in March, calling the work an 'inspiring mission' that was 'worth doing.' Davis also appeared at a briefing alongside Musk at the White House with a small group of reporters, when Musk spoke about DOGE's work and its future. Miller is the wife of Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller and was also part of the first Trump administration. She was named to the DOGE advisory board in December. Burnham was DOGE's general counsel. He's also the president and founder of Vallecity Capital LLC and earlier served as a Supreme Court clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch. On Wednesday night, Musk took to X to share his gratitude to President Donald Trump. 'As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,' he said. 'The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.' Yet Musk earlier this week courted controversy as he slammed the large spending package put forward by Trump and congressional Republicans, which passed the House last week, and is currently expected to massively balloon the debt to $4 trillion even amid huge cuts in public services. 'I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,' the billionaire told CBS. Both Musk and the other top officials at DOGE were limited by a 130-day restriction on their status as Special Government Employees. Musk has said that he will return full-time to his companies. Musk is stepping down just after a former DOGE associate has said that he was removed after an interview in which he spoke about his work was published earlier this month. Engineer and tech startup founder Sahil Lavingia wrote in a personal blog post that he 'got the boot' from DOGE the day after Fast Company published an interview with him. In the interview, he discussed finding fewer inefficiencies than he had expected. He was assigned as the senior adviser to the chief of staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Government Executive noted. 'I would say the culture shock is mostly a lot of meetings, not a lot of decisions,' Lavingia told Fast Company. The outlet noted that Lavingia noticed that there were plenty of mission-driven people working in the government. 'But honestly, it's kind of fine — because the government works. It's not as inefficient as I was expecting, to be honest. I was hoping for more easy wins,' he said. Fiscal conservatives, meanwhile, are frustrated that the spending cuts put forward by DOGE aren't being codified, and worried about Trump's spending plan boosting expenditures. 'To see Republicans in Congress cast aside any meaningful spending reductions ... is demoralizing and represents a betrayal of the voters who elected them,' Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote on X. Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on Wednesday: 'Personally I want to pass DOGE cuts every single week until the bloated out of control government is reigned back in. As a country, we cannot survive our national debt and honestly, we may be past the point of return. We should be aggressively attacking our debt and aggressively, cutting all waste fraud, and abuse and unnecessary programs.'
