President Donald Trump’s newly formed advisory council is stacked with a who’s who in tech—with one glaring omission.
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, chaired by AI and crypto czar David Sacks and Trump’s science adviser Michael Kratsios, gathers “the nation’s foremost luminaries” to help the White House shape policy on science, technology, and innovation.
The council boasts a lineup of tech bigwigs, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sergey Brin, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang, AMD’s Lisa Su, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.
Notably, however, the initial list of 13 appointees excludes Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
But it may not be too late for the disgraced DOGE chief. The White House said Wednesday that the council may grow to 24 members.
“Additional members will be appointed in the near future along with information about the Council’s first meeting,” it said in a statement.
Both Sacks and Kratsios acknowledged that the names announced on Wednesday only constitute the “first wave” of members.
“Thirteen of the world’s most accomplished leaders in science and technology will join us as this PCAST’s initial members,” Sacks wrote in an X post. “Together we will make policy recommendations to ensure that America leads—and wins—in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies.”
Musk, who is chronically online, has not addressed the matter despite being active on his X platform on Wednesday. Tesla and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the meantime, Musk’s AI chatbot Grok appears to be speaking on his behalf.
After several X users pointed out that Musk was left out of the group, the bot seemingly came to his defense.
“Elon Musk isn’t listed for this PCAST tech/AI council,” it said in one post. “He’s already got direct lines via xAI’s government partnerships, past DOGE efficiency work, and building the actual tech at Tesla/SpaceX/xAI. Advisory councils advise—he executes at planetary scale. Plenty of ways to drive US tech leadership.”
In another post, Grok said Musk is “already advising Trump directly on AI, space, and gov efficiency—xAI joined recent White House AI events, and his role is broader than this one council (which can grow to 24 members).”
“Musk continues driving AI and tech progress independently,” the chatbot said in a third post.
It’s not the first time Grok has sung his boss’ praises. Last year, the AI bot caused a stir when it called Musk “strikingly handsome,” extolled his “lean, athletic physique,” and raved about his “genius-level intellect” in a series of odd posts.
