The Trump administration is blurring the public and private sector workforce, and OPM director Scott Kupor won’t rule out conflict of interest risks |
The Trump administration is blurring the public and private sector workforce, and OPM director Scott Kupor won’t rule out conflict of interest risks
President Donald Trump’s second-term appointments set a record for the wealthiest presidential administration in modern history, an early indication Trump had no problem welcoming business magnates into his inner political circle. Those individuals included Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with a net worth of $805 billion, to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as well as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, longtime CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
With Trump himself a real estate developer with deep ties to cryptocurrencies, it’s perhaps not a surprise that among the priorities for building the government workforce would be to create more opportunities for private sector workers, as well as to create a more permeable barrier between the two sectors. Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor—the former managing partner at venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz before joining the Trump administration in 2025—has been tasked with carrying that out.
“One of the things that I’m hoping to do a better job on is getting people from the private sector—who’ve been in the private sector their whole career—who also spend a couple years in government at some point in their career, and learn something,” Kupor told Fortune.
Tightening private sector ties
Kupor has helped create a number of initiatives to welcome private sector workers into the government. In December of last year, OPM launched the U.S. Tech Force, an initiative hiring 1,000 engineers and specialists meant to improve AI infrastructure in the government. The program is in “collaboration with leading technology companies,” according to the government website, including Amazon Web Services, Apple, Google, Nvidia, Palantir, OpenAI, and Oracle, among others.
After two years of participation in the program, Tech Force........