Trump's First Week: Inauguration Recap, Executive Actions, TikTok, Stargate + Sacks is Back!

Friedberg’s strongest Washington takeaway was that DOGE’s real obstacle is political incentives, not identifying waste. Officials and lawmakers are rewarded for bringing jobs and spending home—he cited Mitch McConnell pressing for a delayed $60 million Kentucky agriculture lab—so meaningful cuts collide directly with reelection incentives.

Thomas Laffont said TikTok’s breakthrough was simple: every uploaded post gets an audience before follower count matters. He described content being shown to one user and then progressively distributed according to engagement, and estimated the U.S. business could plausibly be worth about $100 billion despite its regulatory uncertainty.

Laffont said China stopped being the straightforward technology-investment opportunity his firm had exploited for two decades once technology became a national-security issue. U.S. and Chinese regulatory regimes changed, innovation and new listings slowed, and he described the Chinese policy environment as a “black box” whose ultimate motives he would not pretend to know.

As an OpenAI investor, Laffont argued that Stargate’s proposed $500 billion cost is less important than whether the infrastructure can earn an adequate return. If the economics work, he said, equity, debt and facility-level financing can supply the capital; OpenAI itself announced a four-year, $500 billion infrastructure plan led by OpenAI and SoftBank. (OpenAI)

The group identified electricity—not simply better chips—as a potential binding constraint on America’s AI ambitions. Laffont and Friedberg argued that China’s rapid power buildout and America’s long-stagnant nuclear expansion could overwhelm a U.S. chip advantage unless permitting accelerates and substantial new nuclear generation is built.

Chamath proposed that taxpayers should receive equity or royalties when government grants, land or permitting create large private gains. He cited Tesla’s $465 million federal loan and his own battery-materials company’s $150 million grant; Laffont agreed upside-sharing can make sense but warned that government ownership could distort competition by effectively choosing winners.

David Sacks joined directly from the White House and explained that he had been given formal responsibilities across crypto, AI and presidential science advice—but was still constrained by ethics onboarding. He would chair the digital-assets working group, help develop the AI action plan and co-chair PCAST, while saying he could listen but not yet fully shape policy. (The White House)

Laffont offered a revealing example of Broadcom CEO Hock Tan’s negotiating discipline: Tan allegedly received a price concession for retaining the Broadcom name, while the sellers forgot to negotiate the stock ticker. The combined company therefore kept Avago’s “AVGO” symbol—a tiny detail Laffont used to illustrate the mindset behind one of technology’s most successful acquisition machines.