Phelim Kine writes a profile of Jacob Helberg, the 36-year-old French-born Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs who is applying a Silicon Valley "move fast and break things" playbook to build the Pax Silica coalition — now 24 countries strong — aimed at severing China's chokehold on critical minerals essential to the AI and quantum computing race. A former Google search policy lead and Palantir senior adviser, Helberg has become the Trump administration's point person for tech diplomacy, threatening to expel members who join rival Chinese groupings while pitching allies that democratic nations must unite or surrender 21st-century power to Beijing.
- Helberg sold millions of dollars in OpenAI, Palantir, Tesla, and Meta stock in late 2025 and early 2026 while holding a Senate-confirmed position
- He was the behind-the-scenes architect of the 2024 TikTok divestiture bill, meeting with dozens of members of Congress to push passage
- In a Brussels speech he condemned the EU's "Caligulan bureaucracy" and warned Europe faces a "civilizational emergency" over its failure to embrace digital technology
- He married VC Keith Rabois in 2018 in a ceremony officiated by Sam Altman; Rabois belongs to the "PayPal mafia" alongside Musk and Thiel
- Born in Paris within hours of the Berlin Wall's fall, Helberg describes being targeted by "anti-Americanism" among French teachers during the Iraq War era
- He credits both the pandemic and October 7 with his conversion from Democratic donor to self-declared "MAGA all the way" loyalist
- Helberg sold millions of dollars in OpenAI, Palantir, Tesla, and Meta stock in late 2025 and early 2026 while holding a Senate-confirmed position
- He was the behind-the-scenes architect of the 2024 TikTok divestiture bill, meeting with dozens of members of Congress to push passage
- In a Brussels speech he condemned the EU's "Caligulan bureaucracy" and warned Europe faces a "civilizational emergency" over its failure to embrace digital technology
- He married VC Keith Rabois in 2018 in a ceremony officiated by Sam Altman; Rabois belongs to the "PayPal mafia" alongside Musk and Thiel
- Born in Paris within hours of the Berlin Wall's fall, Helberg describes being targeted by "anti-Americanism" among French teachers during the Iraq War era
- He credits both the pandemic and October 7 with his conversion from Democratic donor to self-declared "MAGA all the way" loyalist
