White House advisor says companies are blaming AI for layoffs because 'it plays better in the press'

Aug 06, 2026 04:03 PM - 2 hours ago 3

Michael Kratsios speaks during an arena astatine the White House

A apical Trump charismatic says immoderate companies are utilizing AI arsenic a power shield for layoffs.

"I deliberation for illustration a batch of folks these days for illustration erstwhile they're doing a layoff that they would person done anyway, conscionable for illustration to delegate it aliases blasted it to AI because it plays amended successful the press," Michael Kratsios, President Donald Trump's subject and exertion advisor, said during a caller section of the "Moonshots pinch Peter Diamandis" podcast.

Host Peter Diamandis added, "And their banal value goes up if they are, you know, producing much gross pinch less people."

Kratsios agreed pinch that appraisal arsenic well: "Precisely. Yeah."

Overall, Kratsios said he's bullish connected what AI will mean for the workforce.

"I judge successful the agelong term, I'm very optimistic astir the effect that AI's going to person connected jobs," he said.

The conception of alleged "AI-washed" layoffs has gained rate among galore AI executives, who person lamented companies citing AI erstwhile informing labor of layoffs.

"I don't cognize what the nonstop percent is, but there's immoderate AI washing wherever group are blaming AI for layoffs that they would different do, and past there's immoderate existent displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said successful February.

Business Insider has tracked 17 companies, including Uber, Snap, and Block, that person cited AI successful their respective layoff decisions. The announcements travel moreover arsenic immoderate economists mobility the communicative that AI is already causing wide layoffs. Polls show that Americans person awesome concerns astir AI-related occupation losses.

Kratsios further lamented the broader dour temper hanging astir AI. Inside the industry, immoderate voices, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, person begun to lash retired astatine the alleged "doomers" whose nationalist chat of everything from occupation losses to bio-weapons has been blamed for polls showing that Americans are now profoundly skeptical of AI.

"If the only point they're proceeding from politicians and from group successful the manufacture is that, 'Oh, there's going to beryllium a bunch of occupation losses and everything is dangerous, and possibly there's going to beryllium bio risk,' I deliberation those are the things that group get worked up, and it shouldn't astonishment america that the PR is bad," Kratsios said.

Kratsios advises President Donald Trump arsenic head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, a Senate-confirmed position. Kratsios sewage his commencement moving for Peter Thiel, worked successful the first Trump administration, and was managing head astatine Scale AI earlier returning to the White House aft Trump's 2024 victory.

At the White House, Kratsios helped trade Trump's "AI Action Plan," released past July, which called for expediting the permitting process for information centers and deprioritizing states pinch "burdensome AI regulations." More recently, he publically accused Moonshot AI of improperly distilling its celebrated Kimi K3 exemplary from Anthropic's Fable 5.