Pam Bondi’s Cancer Battle Didn’t Stop Trump From Shoving Her Into a Tech Advisory Role Packed With His Billionaire Buddies
She’s back.
Pam Bondi will now sit at the table with some of the biggest names in tech. The former attorney general has been tapped to join the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a high-profile panel stacked with billionaire CEOs and White House insiders. Her new gig puts her in the middle of the Trump administration’s push to shape artificial intelligence policy, a role that comes weeks after her thyroid cancer diagnosis.
The council, co-chaired by Donald Trump advisers David Sacks and Michael Kratsios, reads like a who’s who of Silicon Valley heavyweights. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Dell CEO Michael Dell, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang are all part of the group, according to PEOPLE.
Bondi’s role will be to act as the bridge between the government and these tech titans, a position that also includes a newly created advisory slot focused on national infrastructure. Vice President J.D. Vance called her an “enormously valuable asset”, saying the administration is lucky to have her tackling some of its most pressing challenges.
The development comes nearly two months after Bondi was ousted as AG
Her brief tenure as the nation’s top law enforcement officer was anything but smooth. Bondi faced sharp criticism over the Department of Justice’s handling of records tied to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender. In February, she claimed a list of Epstein’s clients was “sitting on my desk right now.” Less than six months later, the DOJ said no such list existed.
The staggered release of Epstein-related materials also drew bipartisan backlash, with Rep. Robert Garcia calling the process “botched” in a letter to Bondi. The department’s decision to expose the names of dozens of victims who hadn’t been publicly identified before only added to the controversy.
Blanche, now the acting AG, insisted Bondi’s ouster had nothing to do with the Epstein files. Annie Farmer, who has accused Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell of sexually abusing her as a teenager, said Bondi’s departure wasn’t about one person but about a system that has “repeatedly failed Epstein survivors.” Farmer, now 46, called for accountability and transparency, regardless of who holds power.
The Trump administration has been struggling to find its footing on AI policy
Days before Bondi’s appointment was announced, Trump scrapped an executive order on AI testing at the last minute, exposing deep divisions within the White House. According to The Hill, the order, which would have created a voluntary 90-day testing period for new AI models before their public release, was pulled after Trump spoke with industry leaders, including Sacks and Zuckerberg.
He said he “didn’t like certain aspects” of the order, fearing it could slow down the U.S. in its race against China to dominate AI development. Trump’s decision to backtrack highlighted the influence Silicon Valley still holds over the administration. Sacks, an early PayPal executive and venture capitalist, has been a vocal advocate for a hands-off approach to AI regulation.
His sway was evident when the White House walked back the executive order, leaving tech policy analysts questioning what, if any, regulations might actually come out of the administration. “If you needed yet more evidence that the burden of frontier AI governance is going to rest principally on the private sector, you got it,” Dean Ball, one of the primary authors of the White House AI Action Plan said.
Bondi will navigate the competing interests of the White House and Silicon Valley
This is while the administration grapples with how to regulate a technology that’s evolving faster than policy can keep up. It’s a tall order for anyone, let alone someone who’s been quietly undergoing cancer treatment. Katie Miller, a former Trump official married to White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, acknowledged Bondi’s resilience stating, “Pam has been quietly kicking cancer’s ass the last few weeks.”
The council, packed with billionaires and tech moguls, raises questions about whose interests will ultimately shape AI policy. With Bondi as the liaison, the administration is signaling that it’s leaning heavily on the private sector to guide its approach. That’s a far cry from the more cautious stance some lawmakers and safety advocates have been pushing for.
(Featured image: The White House)
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