Deep Seek And Destroy - Part Seven
Scale AI's Young Billionaire Has Some Big Connections Like The Bergruen Institute
Henry Kissinger’s last days were spent planning with Nicholas Berggruen with what Los Angles might look like some day.
Article summary (
Henry Kissinger’s final project reportedly paired him with billionaire philosopher Nicholas Berggruen to sketch a future Los Angeles shaped by big-data governance and AI. Their think-tank nexus, the Berggruen Institute, has quietly recruited Washington and Silicon Valley heavyweights to turn those ideas into policy. The article opens by framing this LA vision as Kissinger’s last strategic legacy.
Front-and-center is Michael Kratsios—Donald Trump’s former U.S. Chief Technology Officer—who now serves both as managing director at Scale AI and as a Berggruen Institute board member. With Trump poised to return to the White House, Kratsios’s dual perch positions Scale AI for a Pentagon windfall. The company’s Ukraine-tested drone-imaging pipeline, architected with Thiel lieutenant Trae Stephens and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, exemplifies a new billionaire-driven defense model.
The piece argues that California media downplays how this AI cohort is wedded to the Department of Defense under a youthful, billionaire veneer. Digging past the hype reveals partnerships with enduring stealth-tech suppliers—most notably General Atomics, builder of Predator and Reaper drones. These alliances suggest a seamless continuum from classic aerospace primes to data-centric AI firms.
Finally, the author hints at deeper secrecy: Top-secret Q-level clearances, Department of Energy nuclear heritage, and Manhattan-Project talent now re-tooled for algorithmic warfare. The names surfacing in this “AI-DoD gold rush” form what the writer calls a metadata mother lode. In short, Kissinger’s twilight scheming has seeded an ecosystem where old-guard defense giants and new-money coders converge on the next epoch of military technology.
People
Henry Kissinger spent his closing months advising Nicholas Berggruen, extending his realpolitik instincts into urban-AI planning. Nicholas Berggruen funds the Berggruen Institute and serves as ideological hub for techno-governance experiments in Los Angeles. Michael Kratsios, once Trump’s CTO, bridges policy and profit by steering Scale AI while shaping Berggruen strategy; alongside him, Trae Stephens (long-time Peter Thiel partner) and Palmer Luckey (29-year-old Anduril founder) supply combat-proven drone and sensor tech.
James Jameson—linked to stealth stalwart General Atomics—appears as the old-school defense liaison who allegedly tried to quash the author’s field reporting. Collectively, these individuals form a lattice of diplomacy, venture capital, and military contracting that accelerates AI deployment. Their overlapping networks suggest policy influence is now inseparable from start-up equity stakes.
Entities & programs
Scale AI provides computer-vision labeling for U.S. and allied drone fleets, gaining clout through Ukraine operations and impending Trump-era favoritism. The Berggruen Institute acts as think-tank cockpit, convening global strategists to fuse urban policy with defense-grade AI. Anduril, staffed by ex-Oculus prodigy Luckey, supplies autonomous hardware that pairs naturally with Scale AI’s data streams.
Legacy contractor General Atomics anchors the aerospace side, tying the new AI wave to decades of classified drone development. The Department of Defense bankrolls much of this ecosystem, while the Department of Energy/Manhattan Project lineage provides Q-cleared talent and nuclear-era secrecy protocols. Together these institutions underwrite what the article brands a “DoD AI gold rush,” translating Kissinger-era geopolitical playbooks into algorithmic power.
Michael Kratsios, who was Trump’s Chief Technology Officer in his first Administration, is the Managing Director of Scale AI, and sits on the Board at the Berggruen Institute.
So Scale AI is certainly well situated now with Trump taking Office as President. Long time Peter Thiel partner, Trae Stephens, is also part of the team that worked with Scale AI in Ukraine and drone manufacturer Andruil, run by twenty nine year old Palmer Lucky.
The story that seems to be baffled and sublimated here in California is the artificial intelligence AI world's involvement with the Department of Defense, cloaked in twenty something billionaires, one after another billionaire.
But with just a little bit of elbow grease and digging, you can get to the true partners who have been long time, stealth aircraft partners of the department of defense, including General Atomics. General Atomics, of vourse, is led by our favorite friend of the channel, James Jameson who tried to shut down our San Diego Learning Man news gathering event now less then three times.
And, of course, we have the obligatory connections to Top Secret Q level clearances the Department of Energy and the Manhattan Project that would fill a spy novel and then some.
We are still collecting all the names, but for certain, we have hit the mother lode in terms of metadata for the AI DoD gold rush that we are in the midst of.
