US President Donald Trump on Wednesday appointed tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison and Jensen Huang as the first members to his President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) which he established via Executive Order.
The council will be co-chaired by David Sacks and Michael Kratsios, said White House in a statement.
The council is likely to be composed of upto 24 members with more members to be appointed in the future.
"PCAST brings together the Nation's foremost luminaries in science and technology to advise the President and provide recommendations on strengthening American leadership in science and technology."
The White House said that PCAST will focus on topics related to the opportunities and challenges that emerging technologies present to the workforce in the US, and "ensuring all Americans thrive in the Golden Age of Innovation".
Full list of people appointed to PCAST
Marc Andreessen, Sergey Brin, Safra Catz, Michael Dell, Jacob DeWitte, Fred Ehrsam, Larry Ellison, David Friedberg, Jensen Huang, John Martinis, Bob Mumgaard, Lisa Su and Mark Zuckerberg.
The list seems to have a majority of tech billionaires, company executives and venture capitalists on its list over scientists, academics and researchers as the list contains 12 company executives whose net worth exceeds millions (and in many cases, billions) and a single scientist and researcher (physicist John Martinis).
This is a break from the previous administration under Barrack Obama whose PCAST line up majorly consisted of scientists and researchers with about two or three billionaire company executives.
Despite its stated focus to deal with topics regarding challenges to the US workforce from emerging technologies, the PCAST is made up of company exectives who have been named in news reports regarding anti-labour practices.
Sergey Brin co-founded Google's parent company with Larry Page, whose name circulated among headlines for asking employees to work 60-hour workweeks on AI projects, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg have both appeared in the news for engaging in mass layoffs, with Ellison having a reputation for opposing employee activism.
These figures are also know for their work with artificial intelligence with Jensen Huang being the chief executive officer of Nvidia, which provides semiconductor chips to AI companies. Micheal Dell is the co-founder of Dell Technologies, while Lisa Su and Safra Catzs are CEOs of AMD and Oracle respectively.
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