Financial disclosure documents show that Emil Michael, who is the Under Secretary for Research, Development, and Engineering at the U.S. Department of Defense and also serves as the Chief Technology Officer, sold his holdings of Perplexity shares in June, with the transaction amount ranging from 5 million to 25 million US dollars. This transaction occurred a few weeks after he joined the Trump administration, and it has once again drawn attention to several other AI related asset sales he made throughout the year.
Within the year, has exited multiple holdings related to AI.
Public information shows that Michael served as a member of the advisory committee for Perplexity before joining the government and resigned at the beginning of 2025. In addition to Perplexity, he also sold his shares in xAI this year. Relevant disclosures indicate that this xAI transaction was completed in January, with the sale amount also falling within the range of 5 million to 25 million US dollars.
The report also mentioned that Michael sold at least $5 million worth of Brex shares in April. Based on the information disclosed so far, Perplexity, xAI, and Brex constitute his three main technology-related exits this year.
xAI Transaction time points attract attention
Disclosure documents show that the U.S. Government Ethics Office issued a xAI share disposal certificate to Michael on December 18 of last year. A few days later, the Pentagon signed a new cooperation agreement with xAI, planning to deploy Grok within a confidential network. The actual completion of the sale by Michael occurred on January 9th.
In addition, before joining the government, he also obtained a personal loan of between $250,000 and $500,000 from Perplexity at an interest rate of 4.57%. His ethics agreement states that he will not profit from shares of Perplexity that have not yet been allocated to him, but the disclosed documents do not clarify whether the shares sold in June were from allocated or unallocated shares, or both.
Anthropic: Controversy intensifies against the ban
At the time of the release of these disclosure documents, Michael was also one of the main public representatives of the Pentagon's restrictions on Anthropic. Anthropic, along with Perplexity and xAI, belongs to the same AI model supplier group and competes for federal government contracts.
The Trump administration ordered federal agencies in February to stop using Anthropic technology. Subsequently, the Pentagon listed the company as a "supply chain risk" and restricted military contractors from doing business with it. However, a federal district judge in the United States ruled last week that this designation constituted unlawful retaliation, revoked the relevant designation, and issued a permanent ban.
Before the court made its ruling, the Pentagon contract originally intended for Anthropic was taken over by OpenAI. At the same time, the Department of Defense also signed confidential network-related agreements with another 7 AI companies, including xAI.
Ethical review still subject to external skepticism
Some ethical experts have raised questions about the above schedule. Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer who served in the Bush administration, stated that Michael should sell all of her interests related to those companies before taking up her position.
The Pentagon responded that Michael and other defense officials "comply fully with ethical laws and regulatory requirements," and stated that there are multiple layers of review processes within the department.
Additional information:Perplexity is currently in talks with Nvidia for a new round of financing, and reports suggest that its valuation could exceed $30 billion, which is higher than the approximate $20 billion valuation in September 2025.
