Trump's former AI advisor David Sacks says stopping AI progress would halt the U.S. economy, citing AI's 75% contribution to Q1 GDP growth

David Sacks, who recently stepped down as Trump's top crypto and AI advisor in March, stated in an X post that AI was already 75% of GDP growth in Q1, and said stopping progress in AI would be equivalent to halting the U.S. economy.

Business investment contributed 1.48 percentage points to last quarter's GDP growth, with most private investment in the U.S. tied to the AI boom. Combined investment in information processing equipment, software, and research and development came out to 1.52 percentage points of overall GDP growth, which last quarter came out to 2%.

A December study from the American Edge Project counted nearly 2,800 data centers announced or under construction in the U.S., with the build-out expected to generate nearly 700,000 permanent jobs and 4.7 million temporary ones. However, the local economic benefits of a typical large data center decline substantially after the construction phase, with long-term operational employment remaining small relative to jobs created during building.