White House Frontier Office: The Behind-the-Scenes Battle to Regulate AI and Reshape the U.S. Research System
Author: Harry Lambert (Colossus)
Compiled by: TechFlow
TechFlow Digest: In the East Room of the White House in 2026, a closed-door gathering with a combined market capitalization of nearly $18 trillion unfolded: NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang, Tesla and xAI founder Elon Musk, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Dell founder Michael Dell, AMD CEO Lisa Su, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin gathered together, awaiting the receipt of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from the United States. However, behind this tech feast brimming with fame and power, the true mastermind pulling the strings is a young man of only 39 who has rarely sought the spotlight: Michael Kratsios, the core leader of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
As the former chief of staff for Silicon Valley pioneer Peter Thiel, Kratsios had already stormed into Washington single-handedly by early 2017. In a bleak office on the brink of being cut, he quietly rebuilt the nerve center of America’s national technology strategy. Within the wildly shifting and multi-faceted power landscape of the White House, he not only avoided being swallowed by fierce political storms but,凭借 marathon-runner-level extreme endurance and the rigorous pragmatism of a technocrat, became one of the few aides to span two presidential terms, earn Trump’s deep trust, and truly hold the pen for presidential signings.
This heavy non-fiction feature, meticulously researched and written over several months by overseas think tank Colossus, for the first time详尽 discloses the private sparring among White House tech giants, the behind-the-scenes maneuvering over the White House Superintelligence Accord, the approval processes for private advanced nuclear energy, and the deeper博弈 attempting to break the rigid scientific research system inherited from the WWII Manhattan Project and Vannevar Bush onwards.
Tech Giants in the East Room: Jensen Huang, Musk, and the National Medals Ceremony
"Hold still, the old man is coming down."
NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang placed his hands on Elon Musk’s shoulders, leaped nimbly off the podium, and returned to the circle formed by Michael Dell, Satya Nadella, Lisa Su, Sergey Brin, and Musk.
This was the first floor of the Donald J. Trump Peace Institute. The president had just arrived at the venue.
The six would later take the stage with the president to receive the National Medal of Science or Technology Innovation. But for now, they were temporarily held in an adjacent auditorium by the Secret Service, killing time before their appearance.
"Alright, let’s talk about Functional Safety," Jensen Huang suddenly said to the other five, without any preamble. "How does it work? An AI sets a goal; how does it achieve it?"
"By taking all necessary measures." Musk replied with a laugh.
Layers of Secret Service agents kept these tech giants apart from their private security teams, entourages, family members, and guests. The enterprises owned or controlled by these six leaders hold a combined market value of approximately $18 trillion.
Trump’s chief science adviser and the key architect behind this gathering, Michael Kratsios, was just pulled away by an assistant to report to his boss. After his departure, the six spent time almost entirely alone together.
Two staff members from the White House video team stood at the podium, recording speeches for each awardee in sequence.
During the interval when Jensen Huang walked up to converse with them, the conversation downstairs naturally turned to the current core bottleneck: compute. For the CEO of NVIDIA, who wore a leather jacket, compute scarcity was undoubtedly monumental news.
"Greg Brockman kept pestering me at dinner, trying to buy compute from me," Musk said when mentioning OpenAI’s president.
"He was also trying to get compute from me," Sergey Brin chimed in.
Musk found Brockman’s audacity hard to believe: "Man, you stole my charity back in the day! After playing your cards so ruthlessly, you actually have the nerve to come asking for a favor? Is your brain okay?"
In the 2010s, Brockman used to keep a diary habit, which became crucial evidence in court during Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in 2024.
"How many adult men do you know who still keep a diary?" Brin joked, stirring the pot. "If I’d written that stuff, I would’ve burned it long ago."
However, the widespread compute shortage currently pales in comparison to the supply crunch of memory storage chips.
"I’ve never seen a supply chain price shock like this in my life," Musk感慨 to the group. He was incredulous at Micron Technology’s staggering 87% gross margin last quarter, a figure more than doubled in just two years (the company raked in $85 billion in net profits over the past 12 months).
Only six companies in the US have profit margins exceeding Micron’s, and half of those CEOs are standing in this very room.
Stripped of their entourage and the ever-present glare of public scrutiny, when Jensen Huang stepped back onto the stage and rejoined the circle, they were simply six ordinary people standing together.
But as with any social circle, a subtle power dynamic quickly emerged: Jensen Huang set the conversational pace, while Musk, holding a small glass of unsweetened cola and ice, displayed an irresistible dominant presence.
Lisa Su remained quiet. Initially standing alone, Nadella soon stepped out of the inner circle to initiate a conversation with her. Although Dell’s market cap has grown more than fivefold since February, Michael Dell himself seemed content letting others lead the banter. Brin and Nadella naturally served as conversational foils between Jensen Huang and Musk.
"NetJets has been terrible for international long-haul flights," Jensen Huang steered the topic toward lighter, private daily matters.
Musk smiled and turned to Dell: "He probably owns an entire fleet anyway."
Tall and unhurried, Dell replied: "Just one. You can only sit on one plane at a time." Dell then expressed gratitude for Musk’s Starlink: "I run Zoom meetings continuously on the flight."
"Starlink has been incredible for us," Brin agreed. Both Dell and Brin own a Gulfstream G650ER luxury private jet capable of carrying 19 passengers.
Surprisingly, Jensen Huang hasn’t bought a private jet, despite recently facing the awkward situation of having zero connectivity on a Delta Air Lines flight.
"I just sat quietly," Jensen Huang said. For someone with boundless energy, this was almost unimaginable. "I force-read roughly 7,000 emails... Nothing drives me crazier than no internet connection. I still have a mountain of work to do!"
Musk playfully quipped: "That’s the perfect sandbox isolation method for AI: shove it into a Delta cabin. Absolutely grounded!"
Before entering this auditorium, everyone had first gathered in a reception room across the lobby. Musk brought his mother, Maye Musk, and three children; Jensen Huang brought his wife, adult children, and his parents; Lisa Su was accompanied by her husband; Brin brought his health-sector influencer girlfriend GiGi, who is favored by Trump; and Dell and Nadella came alone.
Musk was the only VIP exempt from security screening, and the last to stride into the room: eyes wide, physically larger than everyone else present, expression dripping with barely concealed amusement, even moving with slightly uncontrolled exuberance.
He scanned the room of roughly 20 guests like a curious high schooler. Standing in this room were the U.S. Secretary of Energy, the NASA Administrator, and three of the world’s top ten wealthiest individuals trailing only Musk.
Within a minute, Musk pulled out his phone to show an internal video of a Tesla Roadster undergoing test flight trials to the crowd gathering around him. "Technically classified, but whatever," Musk grinned.
Initially, Musk was completely immersed in the video demo, barely noticing Kratsios. (The two share a close personal bond.)
Jensen Huang, adept at getting along with everyone, was more thoughtful. He proactively greeted Kratsios: "Director, great to see you." And when Kratsios warmly shook hands with his father, he deliberately introduced Kratsios to his parents.
"He’s our nation’s chief scientist," Jensen Huang proudly told his parents, marveling at his youth. "Only 39? When I was 39, I was at the absolute peak of my life."
Subsequently, the awardees moved to the adjacent auditorium to clear the way for the President of the United States and his inseparable security detail. While the six tech giants passed the time, the first floor was completely evacuated.
At this point, an assistant appeared at the doorway to relay a message: The President has arrived.
Trump was only about eight meters away, but heavily guarded. He then visited each awardee individually backstage: shaking hands, hugging, and patting each person on the shoulder.
When it was Brin’s turn, Trump even gave him a special hug, gripping both arms and swaying him side to side. When he released him, lip-reading suggested he said: "We love you."
As the event shifted to the main stage, seven fully armed Secret Service assault team members carrying automatic rifles lined up neatly in the auditorium, while the President was surrounded by even more agents in traditional suits.
Trump spoke first, listing each awardee’s achievements one by one. He deliberately started with Musk, lingering on him the longest; the bond between the two seemed stronger than ever.
Earlier that morning, SpaceX had just safely brought back four astronauts who had spent eight months aboard the International Space Station.
"Can you imagine what would happen if the mission went sideways?" Trump joked off-script. "I don’t know if he’d still be able to stand here today... But El always pulls through, right?"
Less than 18 months prior, Musk had publicly taunted Trump on X, threatening to expose records in the Epstein files. Yet some deeper rapport beyond mere transactional利益 ultimately thawed relations between them.
"We’re proud of you, incredibly proud. You’re a national treasure," Trump genuinely praised on stage.
Subsequently, Kratsios stepped onto the futuristic arched podium emblazoned with prominent letters spelling "SCIENCE". He demonstrated profound insight into the President’s character:
"Mr. President, before formally presenting the medals, we prepared a short video tribute to the lifelong outstanding achievements of the 1983 National Medal of Science recipient, your uncle, John G. Trump."
Trump had already mentioned his uncle in his opening remarks. The scholar, who taught at MIT for nearly 40 years, possessed brilliance that Trump frequently highlighted in various settings.
To produce this tribute短片, Kratsios specifically enlisted renowned Hollywood director Brett Ratner. The短片 opened with: "Some scientists changed modern medicine, some helped win wars, and John G. Trump did both."
After the短片 played, Kratsios presented another surprise: handing over the medal John G. Trump received that year, carefully framed, directly to the President’s hands. Trump joyfully showed this heirloom to the audience as the awardees officially stepped onto the stage to receive their honors.
"That’s it, that’s the core of the entire game," Trump said to the awardees beside him as his speech concluded, thoroughly savoring the solemn moment. "It’s time you got the recognition you deserve. Your names are about to be etched into history."
After the event ended, I ran into Kratsios backstage. "The President was thrilled," he couldn’t hide his own joy. Kratsios noted that it was precisely because of his uncle that Trump truly grasped the profound significance of this tech celebration: "He loved it so much, he literally just told me: 'Give me five more names, let’s host another one immediately!'"
Photo: President Trump applauding Satya Nadella, Michael Dell, Lisa Su, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, and Greg Brockman for their National Medal of Technology and Innovation recipients in the White House East Room
From Thiel Capital to the White House: Taking Over a Failing Science Policy Office
Since Trump’s first swearing-in on January 20, 2017, Michael Kratsios has served the President every day of his term.
Almost unknown during Trump’s first term, he has now grown into one of the rare trusted White House aides capable of translating the President’s fickle intentions into rigorous policy reality.
Over six years, he transformed an institution historically devoid of存在感: the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), into a powerhouse engine within the federal government.
HISTORICALLY, OSTP was often mocked by outsiders as merely a ceremonial department producing bureaucratic reports like "algae bloom management" per congressional mandates. Now, however, Kratsios is using it to dictate cutting-edge tech policy for the entire U.S. government.
He sits firmly between the two largest pools of power in America: the U.S. Presidency and Silicon Valley tech giants. In critical frontier domains like science, aerospace, nuclear energy, and quantum computing, he effectively serves as the White House’s highest coordinator.
On election night 2016, the day after celebrating his 30th birthday, Kratsios watched Trump’s victory speech unfold from the sunken trading floor of Thiel Capital in San Francisco.
By then, he had already worked for Peter Thiel for six years. He keenly realized a once-in-a-lifetime historical opportunity was unfolding before him. His boss, the first VC godfather in Silicon Valley to openly back Trump, was about to be appointed to the Presidential Transition Committee.
As early as 2005, 18-year-old Kratsios had served as a summer intern in Senator Lindsey Graham’s office during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Before joining Thiel Capital, he briefly touched investment banking, but his heart always longed to return to the Washington political arena.
On the Monday following the election, he flew with Thiel and a few core members to Trump Tower in New York.
They secured office space on the 14th floor. Kratsios began pondering deeply: For a President whose campaign focused entirely on populist issues like immigration, trade, and tariffs, what should an effective national tech governance framework look like?
He assisted in preparing the first breakthrough meeting between Trump and major Silicon Valley tech leaders.
"You can call my people, or call me directly—it makes no difference. We don’t have rigid formal chains of command in the White House," Trump told the tech giants at the time. Few realized then how completely those casual words would be validated later.
When Thiel flew back to San Francisco, Kratsios chose to stay in Washington, conducting a地毯式 survey of the federal government’s intricate agencies and departments.
Ultimately, his gaze settled on one name: the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
In his view, this long-underutilized White House office had the potential to become the nation’s most vital tech decision-making hub. He couldn’t understand why no one had previously grasped its strategic value.
HISTORICALLY, all previous OSTP directors were senior academic scientists with Ph.D.s, primarily tasked providing symbolic academic advice that was often ignored.
In 1976, after Nixon grew tired of the scientific community dictating his foreign policy and dissolved its predecessor, Congress formally legislated the position to ensure the President could receive cross-partisan, objective tech advisory. But the Director also managed a massive government machine, and few pure scientists adapted well to the complex institutional博弈 inside bureaucracies.
In Kratsios’s eyes, OSTP had long stagnated. During Obama’s administration, its focus skewed excessively toward climate science and fixing government websites; while noble pursuits, Kratsios traced OSTP’s historical lineage to a far more turbulent era: the wartime R&D hub led by MIT scientist Vannevar Bush during WWII, which ignited the Manhattan Project.
Under modern government structures, OSTP holds no statutory direct jurisdiction over the giant agencies controlling America’s $200 billion annual R&D budgets: including the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy (DOE) managing 17 national labs, the two pillars of basic science—the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF)—and NASA.
But it is an inseparable part of the White House: as long as the President and White House Chief of Staff authorize it, it can command the entire federal bureaucracy in the President’s name.
When Trump took office, OSTP even faced near-total shutdown. Conservative think tank Heritage Foundation aggressively lobbied to abolish it, and Obama’s prior emphasis on the agency alone provided sufficient justification for a new President to scrap it.
But Trump’s team was embroiled in fiercer political battles, leaving OSTP completely sidelined. This ironically gave Kratsios an opening: he successfully appointed himself as Deputy Chief Technology Officer (Deputy CTO) within the office. It’s a position requiring no Senate confirmation, allowing him to start immediately; with both the official CTO and OSTP Director vacancies unfilled, practical control of the entire office fell squarely into his hands.
Portrait photo: Michael Kratsios, core leader of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
On January 21, 2017, amidst Washington’s continuous drizzle, Kratsios crossed the street and entered the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) adjacent to the West Wing. Nearly all White House staff are stationed there, yet he had never stepped foot inside before.
At the end of a long black-and-white checkered stone corridor on the fourth floor, a conference room sat full of federal civil servants fearing for their jobs. Lean, alert, and rarely losing his temper, Kratsios pushed open the door and introduced himself.
A former full-marathon runner, he won Model United Nations championships four times in public high school in South Carolina. In 1997, at age 10 traveling in Europe and Japan with his parents, he insisted they take him to ride the world’s fastest train at the time: Japan’s Shinkansen 500 series.
Regrettably, he never experienced a transoceanic Concorde flight before the supersonic aircraft retired at age 16. Now, he desired to bring supersonic travel back to the skies in Washington and transform OSTP into a true "American Frontier Office."
While Trump was deploying radical political takeover personnel to key departments, Kratsios clearly wasn’t one of them.
"Hi, I’m Michael," Kratsios broke the ice in his characteristic humble tone. "I’ll be working alongside you from here on." He connected with two veteran holdovers from the previous administration坚守阵地的 in the office, then formally began work.
The White House’s Behind-the-Scenes "Deep Plumber": Executive Orders and Deregulation Power Games
In the West Wing, the President would never allow a single wall to remain empty. Along the remarkably low ceilings of White House corridors, every inch of white wall is covered with giant portraits of Trump: waving before Marine One, receiving UFC fighters on the South Lawn, or striding heroically through AI-generated walls of flames in his signature structured overcoat.
At noon on September 15, 2026, a Marine stood perfectly straight at the West Wing entrance, signaling the President was working in the White House that day. It happened to be the day Kratsios gave me a tour, exactly three weeks before the grand tech awards ceremony.
After a hushed indoor walkthrough, we stepped onto the dazzling "Presidential Walk of Stars" Trump laid out under the west colonnade. Pointing to the portrait of Joe Biden’s fountain pen signature engraving, Kratsios laughed and asked if I wanted a photo.
I came to the White House deeply curious about exactly how Kratsios wielded power in this office he had targeted as an ambition springboard a decade earlier.
That very morning, artificial intelligence completely dominated our conversation: just the day before, Trump had called Jensen Huang at an industry conference, telling the world Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, needed to shut his mouth, vehemently denouncing alleged AI safety risks as nonsense.
"It’s an absolute conspiracy," the President said in his signature cadence on speakerphone to Jensen Huang, talking mostly to himself rather than interacting with others.
I wanted to uncover exactly what Kratsios was doing with his authority, how much of the AI regulatory博弈 was dictated by his office, and how he survived navigating beneath a President who valued business titan facades over staffer advice.
When Kratsios was officially appointed OSTP Director and Chief Science Adviser to the President, a physics professor at CUNY condemned the appointment in the New York Times as "a complete disaster," claiming: "Climate science is dead, God knows what virology will look like, marking the beginning of the end of America’s golden age of science."
But I knew clearly that外界 often conflates Kratsios with his past and present political patrons.
Thiel indeed tried in 2017 to place a famous climate skeptic as science adviser; but in Washington’s official establishment circles (including multiple Biden-era former officials), Kratsios is viewed as a nearly neutral believer in "Progress Studies."
He contrasts sharply with White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought, who attempted in 2026 to slash non-defense R&D spending by a full third. Fortunately, U.S. science funding budgets are ultimately decided by Congress, refusing to blindly comply with White House cuts.
A young staffer under Kratsios described him using high school vocabulary as "a highly successful tech geek."
As former White House AI Chief Adviser and current Anthropic Frontier Compute Strategy Lead Sihao Huang told me, OSTP under Kratsios is basically "a bunch of hardcore nerds inside the White House": "My engineers and physicists often stayed till midnight in the office, passionately debating neutrino dynamics."
"Michael has a strong personal preference for STEM backgrounds," Sihao Huang recalled. "I brought candidates for interviews constantly, and he’d always nitpick: 'This guy’s tech background isn’t hard enough. They don’t understand AI fundamentals.' I couldn’t help but remind him: 'Michael, your undergrad degree is in Political Science, plus a certificate in Greek Studies!' Yet he often texts me obscure AI tech blogs at deep night, chasing questions: 'What’s your take on this benchmark test for Chinese open-source models? What does this imply for reinforcement learning’s evolution in cybersecurity capabilities?'"
Kratsios vividly reconstructed for me what working for this President actually feels like.
Back in August, he reported a brand-new commercial space transport policy directly to Trump in the Oval Office. Trump listened and immediately asked: "How does Elon feel about this?"
Kratsios hadn’t shared details with Musk yet, so the President didn’t hesitate, dialing Musk on speakerphone and ordering Kratsios to brief him on the spot.
"We chatted briefly on speaker, call ended. Then the President instantly said: 'Get Jeff Bezos on too.'" Kratsios briefed Bezos, swiftly won his support, and Trump signed the executive order with a sweeping flourish.
A former White House senior official from Trump’s first term succinctly summarized three Presidents’ radically different decision-making styles:
"Obama craved being, and often was, the smartest person in the room. He’d read all briefing docs cover-to-cover; Reagan absolutely hated arguing, demanding advisers reach consensus before entering; Trump wants to watch各方 debate fiercely right in front of him. He never reads long reports, but he’s unmatched at reading the room."
Yet, the "room" determining Presidential intent isn’t limited to those inside the West Wing. Facing Trump, who measures social validation through wealth, you don’t need West Wing credentials to be the loudest voice in the ear—and you can never predict who he’ll listen to on any given day.
An official closely cooperating with the White House vividly compared power flow to light piercing a prism: "It’s like a polyhedron. On one day, light passes through this facet; on another, it enters from a completely different angle."
Kratsios’s longevity stems precisely from his清醒 acceptance of his position in the White House power pyramid.
Criticism occasionally directed at him points out excessive caution and rare attempts to forcefully push his own agenda. This fundamentally misjudges his positioning—he never believes he possesses disposable political capital.
"Those shining brightly on stage often come and go, hot and cold," a former official admitted bluntly. "Only those behind the scenes truly endure, and truly get things done."
Sihao Huang confirmed that across all major AI policy decisions during Trump’s tenure, Kratsios remained "the one who always stayed in the room, and after broad directions were set, actually drafted and executed the policy."
Close-up photo: Michael Kratsios working in his office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building
OSTP frequently drafts Executive Orders (EOs) directing federal bureaucracy to execute tech policies. For signed documents, Kratsios’s grasp of technical details far exceeds the President’s, making him indispensable. But chatting with him, I still struggled to define: wielding the President’s seal—was it merely glorified minutes-taking, or critical administrative actuality?
Kratsios’s dual role manifested perfectly when the President convened all top AI leaders to sign the White House Accord on Superintelligence.
Kratsios attended, escorting leading lab heads to the East Room for formal signing. But the executive order he ultimately drafted merely changed AI’s official title to "Superintelligence (SI)."
As a former staffer revealed to me, the agreement, personally drafted by Mark Zuckerberg and synced to Kratsios only hours before the summit, essentially aimed to make the White House look proactive on AI safety, rather than enforcing substantive regulatory constraints.
During a deep dive interview in his office, Kratsios explicitly expressed similar stance: Government shouldn’t intervene blindly.
"What exactly does Amodei want the government to do that it’s not already doing? Does Anthropic want us to find model safety vulnerabilities they overlooked themselves? That’s exactly where I’m confused. You could announce tomorrow you’re dedicating a billion dollars to model safety yourself."
"You control your training pipelines, your deployed guardrails, your sandbox testing environments, how many third-party eval firms you hire for red-teaming, whether you allocate 90% of engineers to frontier models or divert 20% to build barriers. None of this concerns the federal government."
But I knew clearly Kratsios’s privately endorsed views ran far deeper than what he voiced publicly that day.
As early as late spring, drawing from DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis’s vision, he had drafted an EO aiming to let AI enterprises implement industry自律 under federal endorsement (to counter stricter international regulations from Europe and abroad).
However, "AI accelerationists" like Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, and Trump’s former AI Envoy David Sacks mounted fierce lobbying blocks, and Trump inherently disliked regulation. An insider bluntly stated: "Too many stakeholders want nothing to change. The behind-the-scenes political博弈 was incredibly intense."
Starting June 2, under White House pressure, major frontier labs began voluntarily submitting models to relevant federal agencies for internal review 30 days before public release.
Kratsios told me in August that the government felt fortunate only two companies operated at the frontier, keeping model release rhythms manageable. But as more firms joined the frontier tier, release cycles drastically shortened—how would they respond then?
Facing open conflict between Trump and Amodei, Kratsios had to temporarily swallow his worries and顺应大局.
"Those constantly sounding safety alarms are precisely the only ones capable of solving these problems," Kratsios told me bluntly in the White House. "Instead of tackling it, they dump the bag on others with zero details... They seem to lack awareness that国会 Sen. Chuck Schumer certainly isn’t the cure-all for solving all their issues."
Reconstructing American Science: From Manhattan Project to Bureaucratic Gridlock
After superintelligence accord dust settled, Kratsios poured all efforts into the National Science Summit he organized.
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman all delivered speeches. Isaacman praised Kratsios’s exceptional cross-agency coordination skills via in-car video link:
"There’s no such thing as 'NASA can handle it alone.' The Trump administration pledged to send nuclear fission reactors to space by 2028, relying completely on DOE, DOT, and FAA full collaboration. OSTP coordinates all tech department leads behind the scenes... Working under Director Kratsios is absolutely a joy."
But beyond grand blueprints, how to make this President accustomed to commercial logic develop lasting interest in fundamental science?
As the summit approached, inspiration struck: award national honor medals to tech leaders earning Trump’s respect via wealth, influence, and loyalty; most crucially: hand a medal directly to the President himself.
Two nights before the summit opened, I took a long-distance call with Kratsios. Our fourth exchange, atmosphere unusually candid, like old friends dining together. I felt he finally lowered defenses, opening his heart to dissect the true core of this work, and why he firmly chose and rooted long-term in OSTP back then.
"During Obama’s term, federal tech coordination was extremely loose, siloed," he told me. "OSTP was never the central focus of decisions. Officials in Obama’s team harbored a deep-rooted, almost pathological obsession, constantly repeating one phrase: 'Seat at the Table.'"
"To them, that was the only priority worth fighting for: running to beg the White House Chief of Staff to ensure OSTP could sit in, offering background commentary when others made decisions."
"That’s arguably the least ambitious goal imaginable!" Kratsios exclaimed. "The most pathetic survival posture: humbly begging permission to participate. No, never! You must be the one calling the meetings! Leading the entire agenda! They fundamentally lacked boldness to envision the macro landscape. You must have firm conviction on the nation’s forward trajectory on major tech issues, leading others to follow, not letting others drag you by the nose!"
The power blueprint Kratsios sketched for the office was first theorized in 1993 during Clinton’s administration. Clinton appointed OSTP Director to chair the nominal National Science and Technology Council, but under career scientists, it generated zero substantive weight because they were disconnected too far from their true power source: the West Wing.
Kratsios spiritual idol Vannevar Bush, decades earlier managing wartime R&D under Roosevelt, cracked this power法则. Bush later confessed bluntly in interviews: "In this damn city of Washington, unless you operate sheltered under the President’s wing, you won’t accomplish anything real."
So, as a political outsider newly entering the fray, how did Kratsios摸索出成事之道？
"First, you must pinpoint exactly the policy action or major national strategy you want to advance, ensuring deep understanding, rigorously detailing every technical nuance, presenting solidly reasoned arguments: why this benefits the nation most, why it’s the optimal path in the field, why it aligns politically with this administration’s agenda. Before speaking to anyone, you must independently forge this logical闭环 completely."
"Second, you must comprehensively map every core key player within the government structure who must be won over. Then, before convening any inter-agency meeting, you must proactively circulate across relevant ministries, building solid grassroots alliances and consensus beforehand."
Historical photo: 1942 Berkeley Manhattan Project pioneers meeting, scientists studying feasibility of large cyclotrons
I gradually came to view Kratsios as "Chief Plumber" of America’s core innovation pipeline: tirelessly clearing systemic blockages across national competitive frontier tracks like nuclear energy, supersonic jets, aerospace traffic, and quantum computing.
But he knew very well, anything he ordered departments to push in Trump’s name risked total reversal on Day One of a new President in Jan 2029. If his political legacy were to survive party cycles, the sole法则 was implementing deep institutional reforms that successors wouldn’t dare revoke.
"There are EOs declaring 'restriction X in energy sector lifted,' but once parties swap, restrictions snap back. But what I truly pour my heart into are the institutional reconstructive changes that fundamentally birthed the private nuclear renaissance we witness today."
In June and July, driven by a DOE pilot program, four privately built new nuclear reactors successfully achieved self-sustaining nuclear fission critical reactions.
Though insufficient to call a full nuclear golden age, it exceeded the three-goal target set in the EO Trump signed thanks to Kratsios in May 2025.
"I’ve always felt decades of U.S. nuclear industry stagnation were incredibly absurd," Kratsios stated. His obsession with reviving nuclear power traces back to Peter Thiel’s seminal 2011 essay "The End of the Future" (read meticulously second year at Thiel Capital at age 24). The pilot’s massive breakthrough attracted many claimants, spotlight almost entirely hitting DOE.
Yet this precisely captures Kratsios’s工作微妙现实: dry,琐碎, often anonymous, but when executed properly, ignites enduring historical echoes. A专属 to technocrats’ grueling work, demanding pure faith in the work itself.
"NRC baseline approval rules must change, and they will. Once these approval pipelines clear, countless queued reactor projects will flow continuously. At that stage, no one can possibly walk back to restriction paths."
Reflecting on his greenhand moves during Trump’s first term, Kratsios felt invigorated by resource scale he could now leverage.
Eight years ago, U.S. drone startups had to fly to Rwanda just to test commercial prototypes. Changing this absurdity was one of his few标志性政绩 back then.
"Back then, sitting at tables, you’d bitterly think: commercial drones can’t launch in the US, ridiculous, and sole culprit is government itself." So you contacted FAA, they agreed原则上 modify rules; but national security raised objections, drones absolutely cannot approach sensitive areas; so you navigated sequentially through FBI, DoD, DOE. Just a seemingly minor tweak, yet required herding entire federal machinery like a sheepdog toward unified direction.
"But this mechanism is highly scalable," he assured me. Once you decipher systemic operational veins, your strategic ambitions face no bounds.
Earlier this year, he spearheaded the so-called "Ratepayer Protection Pledge," successfully pushing the President to announce it nationally in State of the Union address, attracting hundreds of tech firms自愿签承诺: tech giants fund, procure, or import all新增 power loads for AI data centers themselves, never passing burden to public. Policy swiftly gained House Speaker support.
Yet, Kratsios most热血沸腾 battlefield remains fundamental science restructuring.
It began with national flagship project coded "Genesis", assigned厚重历史定位 rivaling next-gen Manhattan Project. It built a national compute infrastructure platform: any scientist获得联邦科研资助 nationwide can freely access顶级算力 resources and massive government classified datasets, exponentially accelerating breakthroughs.
Pre-summit, through powerful政商穿透, Kratsios successfully lobbied NVIDIA, AMD, Google, Amazon, Anthropic, OpenAI to collectively pledge $2.4 billion massive free compute pool as part of national plan.
Summit day, top executives sequentially announced pledges on crowded stage, solemn atmosphere宛如全行业科技宣誓.
"Imagine you’re ivory tower researcher unable to afford sky-high compute costs—who backs you? We do. We’re fighting for billions in free frontier compute for them," Kratsios excitedly told me that night. "Outside White House, no entity nationwide casually claims 'give us a billion free compute' and sees miracle happen! This is White House主导意志 power. Every major reform we advance binds government, philanthropy, and private capital tightly—this foundational root allows policies transcend cycles, endure."
Yet to those measuring federal R&D support purely by bureaucratic expansion size, Kratsios’s fervor sounds格外刺耳.
Despite NIH research funding总支出不减少 vs Biden era, National Science Foundation (NSF)—full高校基础科学核心资助源泉—saw admin编制staff massively slashed by exactly 35% since Trump reclaimed White House.
Kratsios’s团队视作打破历史包袱、重塑体制活力绝佳契机, but inevitably sparked恐慌与绝望 among传统学术官僚群体.
Stage’s冠冕堂皇 masked幕后深层思潮. Behind all speeches贯穿始终核心理念 comprehensive embrace of "Metascience": applying rigorous scientific methods to examine and reconstruct科研体制本身运行效率.
Bewilderingly, within massive NIH & NSF这种自我审视长期缺位, nearly从不追踪评估自身资金审批分配机制真实产出效率.
Caleb Watney,联合创始人华盛顿进步研究所 explained to me: "Federal过去元科学探索往往掏钱委托外部学者评估;放眼全美唯一够庞大数据样本开展严密科研体制实验实体正是联邦政府本身."
Kratsios随同发布重磅报告明确指出新设元科学特别部门将正式赋予自主开展科研资助实验强制要求项目主管配合执行法定权力防止改革前哨蜕化为普通合规检查摆设.
无元科学量化牵引报告所列出其他雄心勃勃激进设想将沦为空谈包括直接无条件资助顶尖科学家个人而非具体研究项目大幅压缩基金申请漫长审批周期彻底绕过同行评议带来平均主义学术保守主义设立形式多元科研机构阵列重中之重全力资助美国年轻一代青年科研新星.
这是Krastsios全篇呼吁中最具情绪张力一笔.
1983年NIH核心主干科研资助金中整整18%投向36岁及以下青年领军科学家;然而到了2010年断崖式崩塌至区区3%.如今全美首次斩获NIH核心资助首席科学家其中位年龄已经高达42岁!
"我们正系统性抛弃美国年轻科学家!Kratsios痛心疾首抨击道,"这些致命危机甚至根本没有进入主流政客视野雷达.年轻人才是这个国家未来得以繁衍生息的真正良种!"
Kratsios这些思想脉络有着清晰历史回响.它们脱胎于Peter Thiel多年来对高等教育机构扭曲科研基金分配流程与真理探索本质深刻批判;它们同样也是在直接呼应Stripe创始人Patrick Collison八年前在大西洋月刊上发出历史呼吁:针对现代科学研究日益加剧效率滑坡必须发起一场全系统级体制重构.
(Collison与Kratsios私交甚笃,Collison近期还专门做客Kratsios家中为来自政府部门改革派官员们建言献策.)
这背后更有Kratsios自己的成长底色:那个10岁那年执意要求父母带他搭乘从广岛到东京的新干线只为亲身体验世界最快列车的小男孩.为什么现代科学非要陷入停滞?尤其是在超智能大门已被推开的今天人类的科技前沿本就该以更猛烈速度全速狂飙.
持久战的前沿办公室:制度泥潭中的科技远征
Photo: Profile shot of Michael Kratsios in Washington D.C.
The science system revolution initiated by Kratsios likely carries历史厚重度 far surpassing surface-level perception.
From each generation since the U.S. Civil War, tensions between federal government and massive scientific establishment have flared into periodic激辩与权力争夺 over "who controls whom." All panic, ambition, and撕裂 playing out in the silicon age were already vividly mirrored in early industrial revolution and atomic eras.
Peter Thiel ignited this latest spark in the cyclical浪潮, and Kratsios is the实干派弟子 who sent himself into the White House and ultimately earned Senate confirmation.
Now, multiple核心门徒 dubbed "Sons of Peter" actively operate within federal government: Emil Michael进驻国防部, Jay Bhattacharya执掌NIH, Jim O’Neill提名为NSF主任;但唯有Kratsios身处最高权力神经中枢的West Wing. He has picked up Thiel’s整套哲学思想关于重构国家体制 and正在将其一笔一画化为现实政治真正行动.
正如他的导师所坦率承认的那样,Kratsios拥有Thiel本人所匮乏的极其罕见的政治耐力.
在被Colossus问及对这位前参谋长的评价时,Peter Thiel直言不讳地说道:
"我根本没有在政坛摸爬滚打所需的那种非凡耐心与极高痛苦承受力.每一个美国人都应该感到无比庆幸,我们能拥有迈克尔这样才华横溢又极具韧性的人站在那个位置上."
Elon Musk同样没有这份深潜官僚泥潭的政治耐力,放眼整个硅谷,几乎无人能够忍受这份旷日持久的制度折磨.这注定是一场专属于全马跑者的漫长修行.
Kratsios在白宫的权力洗礼中迅速成熟,摸索出了一套在体制中破壁成事的独特方法论,并且在现代历史上行事最为变幻莫测的总统麾下,稳稳守护住了属于国家前沿的战略阵地.
在2021年出版的一本关于Peter Thiel的传记中,Kratsios曾被轻描淡写地讥讽为一个“人畜无害的技术官僚”,被视作一个在权力过渡期侥幸混进西翼大楼的无足轻重的小人物.
但回过头看,这恰恰是他最不可战胜的致命美德.
在极其严酷复杂的现实世界中,想要将颠覆性的宏大政治理念付诸实践,最有效的伪装往往正是做一个“人畜无害的技术官僚”:前提是你必须极其勤勉,极其善于把事情办成.
毕竟,放眼这颗星球上的任何官僚体制,绝不会有任何一个既得利益机构,在被当面宣告即将被千刀万剐时,还会心甘情愿地束手就擒.