Michael Kratsios


Michael John Kotsakas Kratsios is an American government official. He serves as the current Chief Technology Officer of the United States, and Deputy Assistant to the President at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In this role, Kratsios serves as one of President Donald Trump's top technology advisors. Since July 10, 2020, Kratsios as also been Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

Education

Kratsios graduated from Richland Northeast High School in Columbia, South Carolina, in 2004. He then studied at Princeton University and graduated with a B.A. in politics and a certificate in Hellenic studies in 2008. Kratsios completed a 125-page long senior thesis, titled "Economics and Voting in the Third Hellenic Republic: An Aggregate and Individual-Level Analysis of the Greek Electorate, 1985-2007," under the supervision of Markus Prior. He was a visiting scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Career

While in college, Kratsios was an intern for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and editor-in-chief and president of Business Today. Following his time at Princeton, he worked for Barclays Capital and Lyford Group International, and later served as the chief financial officer of Clarium Capital Management.
Prior to joining the Trump administration as deputy assistant to the president, Kratsios was a principal at Thiel Capital and served as chief of staff to entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

Trump administration

White House

At the White House, Kratsios has advocated for the promotion of emerging technologies in the United States. Under his leadership, the White House hosted the American Leadership in Emerging Technology Summit during the Administration's Technology Week in June 2017. Kratsios is currently leading the administration's efforts on Artificial Intelligence. He also led the White House effort to integrate drones into the national airspace system, resulting in a presidential memorandum signed October 25, 2017, that called for the establishment of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program.
In September 2017, Kratsios served as the U.S. Head of Delegation at the G7 ICT Ministerial in Turin, Italy. In August 2018, Kratsios served as the U.S. Head of Delegation at the G20 Digital Economic Ministerial in Argentina. He worked with U.S. allies, including in the G7, to counter China in AI policy, and during his tenure, the U.S. joined the Global Partnership on AI.
In March 2019, the White House announced that Trump would nominate Kratsios as the next U.S. CTO and an associate director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. On August 1, 2019, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to confirm him as the fourth U.S. CTO.

Department of Defense

On July 13, 2020, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Kratsios would serve as its Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.