Less than two months after Trump ousted Pam Bondi as attorney general (she left the Justice Department on April 2), he appointed her to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), Axios first reported on May 26, 2026, and a White House official confirmed to The Hill. According to Axios, Bondi will be charged with facilitating coordination between the government and the tech titans on the panel. The council is co-chaired by David Sacks, Trump's former White House AI and crypto czar, and Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; its members include Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
Sacks wrote on X that “no one is better positioned to support PCAST and to advise the president on legal and regulatory matters” than Bondi. Vice President JD Vance said: “Pam has been an enormously valuable asset to the president's team, and I'm thrilled for her and for all of us that she's going to remain involved in confronting some of the most important issues the administration faces.” Bondi was diagnosed with thyroid cancer shortly after leaving the Justice Department and told CBS she is undergoing treatment, the BBC reported.
The appointment came as Bondi's former department, now led by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, faced criticism over the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” (see The DOJ Announces a $1.776 Billion 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' to Compensate Trump's Allies, Settling the President's $10 Billion Lawsuit Against the IRS He Controls). The New York Times reported, as quoted by MS NOW, that on her first day as attorney general in February 2025 Bondi signed a directive, titled “Reinstating the Prohibitions on Improper Third Party Settlements,” that appeared to prohibit an arrangement like that fund. Blanche told a House Appropriations subcommittee on June 2 that the fund was not moving forward.
Correction (October 2, 2026): this entry said the appointment came “roughly one month” after Bondi's ouster and dated the Axios report to May 27; Bondi left on April 2, The Hill describes the gap as nearly two months, and Axios dates its report May 26, so the title, summary and date have been corrected. Claims that Bondi was given a separate advisory role on national infrastructure and that she is “not under investigation,” which no loaded source supports, have been removed, as has an unsourced claim that the council was designed to prevent revolving-door appointments. The entry also wrongly said Bondi had held the acting attorney general role; she was the confirmed attorney general.