Press kit
How to introduce him
On screen: Satya Thallam / Fmr. Senior White House Official. Where the lower third takes a second line, Foundation for American Innovation.
On screen, by segment: Fmr. White House AI Policy Advisor. Fmr. White House and Congressional Regulatory Advisor. Fmr. Congressional Infrastructure and Permitting Expert.
Spoken: "Satya Thallam spent nearly two decades in Washington writing the rules rather than commenting on them. At the White House he oversaw federal rulemaking across nearly a dozen cabinet agencies and worked on the first AI executive order. In the Senate he ran regulatory policy, and he wrote the Right to Try Act."
In twenty-five words: "Satya Thallam oversaw federal rulemaking at the White House and ran regulatory policy in the Senate. He has testified before the House and the Senate."
Selected tape
Under questioning, unscripted
Prepared
The full record — testimony, appearances, speaking, and publications — is at Public Record.
Topics
AI rules without a law. Congress has passed no general AI statute, so AI policy is being made by executive order, agency guidance and state legislatures, and the administration has now moved to declare some state AI laws invalid. He had a hand in the first AI executive order at the White House, ran AI policy strategy at Americans for Responsible Innovation, and helped defeat the first attempt to preempt the states, 99-1.
Deepfakes, and the first AI harm Congress legislated. The TAKE IT DOWN Act made non-consensual intimate imagery, including the AI-generated kind, a federal matter and put a takedown duty on the platforms. He ran the policy strategy behind the advocacy that passed it.
After Chevron, who writes the rules. Courts no longer defer to agency interpretation, which moves the drafting burden onto a Congress that is not staffed to carry it. He testified on this before the House Committee on House Administration.
Emergency powers that do not end. A president can govern for years on authorities Congress delegated and never took back. He has testified twice on reforming the National Emergencies Act, in the House and in the Senate.
Who approves the riskiest research. The government has replaced the gain-of-function oversight regime built after the 2014 lab accidents, and named the new reviewer an "independent third-party review body" staffed by federal officials. He was part of the 2019 Senate inquiry into how that research was getting approved, and has written on why secret expert review — pandemic pathogens or frontier AI — buys scientific credibility, not political durability.
How Congress undoes a rule. The Congressional Review Act was used thirteen times in 2017, against once in the previous twenty-one years. He was the Senate point person on the CRA and built the target list.
Why your power bill is going up, and the data center down the road. Appropriation is not groundbreaking, and a signed permit is not a kilowatt. States are writing separate utility rate classes for data centers and fighting over who carries the transmission cost. In the Senate he ran the legislation that built the federal permitting review system those projects still go through.
The right to try, and psychedelic medicine. He wrote and negotiated the Right to Try Act, cited in two State of the Union addresses and in a general-election presidential debate, and he advises on psychedelic medicine policy.
Whether the government's own numbers can be trusted. Federal statistics and program evaluation run on authorities almost nobody has heard of, and they are only as independent as Congress requires them to be. He was the Senate point person on the Evidence-Based Policymaking Act.
Short bio
Satya Thallam is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. As Senior Counselor in the White House he oversaw rulemaking across nearly a dozen cabinet agencies, and in the Senate he was the point person on regulatory reform. He has testified as a bipartisan expert witness before the House and Senate.
Long bio
Satya Thallam is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, with nearly two decades in Washington from the White House to white shoe law firm, Congress to the classroom.
As Senior Counselor in the White House, he oversaw rulemaking across nearly a dozen cabinet agencies, with a hand in the first-ever AI executive order and technology export controls. In the Senate he was the point person on regulatory reform and the Congressional Review Act, he ran the legislation that overhauled federal permitting review, and he wrote and negotiated the Right to Try Act, cited in two State of the Union addresses and in a general-election presidential debate. At Americans for Responsible Innovation he served as Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, running its AI policy strategy, including advocacy on the TAKE IT DOWN Act, now federal law. At a Top 100 law firm he advised Fortune 50 companies and clients under Congressional investigation.
He has testified as a bipartisan expert witness before the House and Senate. He writes at The Grand Resign.
For producers
Based in the Bay Area and on call for in-person there. In Washington regularly, with notice. Broadcast-quality remote on demand. Bookings and inquiries: Wendy Guarisco, The Guarisco Group — wendy@guariscogroup.com.
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