Donald Trump · Fortune Technology
Trump’s former AI czar confirms the quiet part out loud on the economy
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President Donald Trump has framed the current state of the U.S. economy as a “ golden age,” and in some ways he’s right.
Key facts
- Last fall, while visiting a rare earth mineral processing facility in South Carolina, Bessent predicted a “ liftoff ” for U.S. manufacturing in 2026 and 2027
- That’s still the case, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which last week reported that consumer spending accounted for 68.1% of GDP
- Combined, the amount invested in the first three months of the year on information processing, equipment, software, and research and development came out to 1.52 percentage points of overall GDP
- Last year’s historically weak market for new jobs added only 156,000 positions, and would have been in the negative had the health care industry not snapped up some 375,000 new hires
Summary
“Polls may show that AI is not popular, but economic growth is,” said venture capitalist David Sacks. Sacks, who recently stepped down as Trump’s top crypto and AI advisor in March, pointed to the increased foothold AI is taking in the U.S. economy, and said it’s the backbone driving the GDP forward. “In Q1, AI was already 75% of GDP growth. One way to gauge the health of the real economy is to look closely at consumer spending.