Jacob Helberg, a Trump megadonor and senior advisor to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, is set to shape U.S. economic and tech diplomacy, even as he and his husband, venture capitalist Keith Rabois, plan to retain their stakes in a large portfolio of companies that stand to benefit from Helberg’s work.
At his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Helberg’s nomination to serve as under secretary of State for economic growth, energy, and the environment advanced with no substantial discussion of his conflicts of interest. In a May ethics disclosure, Helberg said he plans to retain investments in hundreds of companies, many of them tied to Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures, where Rabois is a managing director. The portfolio spans sectors like artificial intelligence, defense, space technology, clean energy, and fintech. It includes some of the most high-profile and politically sensitive tech companies in the country, such as OpenAI, SpaceX, Anduril Industries, Neuralink, and Stripe. Other firms in his holdings work on drones, quantum computing, lab-grown meat, fusion energy, and firearms.
