EXCLUSIVE — A group of legal veterans with ties to President Donald Trump‘s past litigation have launched a firm located just steps from the White House to capitalize on the growing demand for influence in Washington’s fast-expanding cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence sectors.
NexusOne Consulting, a lobbying firm founded by attorney Jeff Ifrah and former Trump lawyer Jim Trusty, opened its doors this week with the goal of helping emerging tech companies navigate, and shape, a fast-evolving regulatory landscape.
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“NexusOne was launched to give the crypto, AI, and other emerging tech industries a seat at the table,” Trusty, principal for the consulting firm and one of Trump’s former lawyers at Ifrah Law who represented Trump during the early days of his federal criminal cases he faced in 2023, said.
The firm’s launch comes as lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration are in high demand.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, crypto and AI companies have ramped up political spending and expanded their Washington operations dramatically.
Companies such as Kraken, Uniswap, Jump Trading, and Riot Platforms are recruiting former administration officials and Capitol Hill staffers to secure influence in a favorable regulatory environment, according to Bloomberg.
“Technology is outpacing policy, and that creates both opportunity and risk,” Ifrah, who has long represented tech clients through his law firm, Ifrah PLLC, said. “There’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the future of tech policy. We’re here to make sure innovators don’t just react to policy—they influence it.”
NexusOne says it aims to help its clients through a heavy focus on the executive branch, with early lobbying priorities including the Commerce Department, the White House crypto and AI czar’s office, and digital policy officials within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The firm also plans to engage selectively with agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“We have a team of folks that we sort of lean into for Hill lobbying, but that’s not what we’re going to primarily be focused on at NexusOne,” Ifrah said, emphasizing the firm’s focus on the executive branch.
The firm’s leadership team also includes Ross Branson, a former senior Commerce Department official during Trump’s first term.
Its advisory board draws from prominent conservative and Trump-aligned figures, including former Republican Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, former Reagan-era Education Secretary William Bennett, and Wall Street financier Andrew Graves, a major fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital through Curetivity.
Ifrah outlined to the Washington Examiner some of NexusOne’s near-term policy targets, many of which fall in line with Trump’s already-stated goals in both Big Tech sectors.
On the crypto side, NexusOne plans to advocate creating a federal strategic digital asset reserve, building on efforts already underway in states like Texas.
“There’s an interest in establishing the strategic reserve and looking at stablecoin — how this would work and who the players would be,” Ifrah said, adding that developments in these areas could happen by year’s end.
On AI, NexusOne plans to push for new takedown mechanisms for AI-generated content, similar to Section 230’s notice-and-takedown structure for internet platforms, along with stronger consumer disclosure rules about the use of AI in digital communications.
“It’s very much the data privacy angle,” Ifrah said, adding, “I think that type of legislation is probably short-term. … I would say by the end of the year.”
Political lobbying for Big Tech policies hit a fever pitch during the 2024 election, with the crypto industry spending upward of $133 million on the election and influencing nearly 100 races, according to the lobbying watchdog site FollowtheCrypto.org.
One of the most ambitious tech initiatives announced under Trump’s second term is the Stargate project, a sweeping $500 billion private-sector effort aimed at securing U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence. Backed by OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and others, Stargate plans to build massive AI supercomputing infrastructure to compete directly with China’s rapidly expanding tech sector.
Trump has framed the project as a national security imperative, warning that American leadership in AI is critical to preventing China from overtaking the United States in technological and military innovation.
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Trusty said he believes the firm is well situated, both in its repertoire and physical proximity to the White House, to push the Trump administration to embrace crypto and AI further as a national interest.
”We are perfectly positioned to help both the Executive Branch and private industry understand and appreciate each other’s roles and abilities in forging the new economy,” Trusty said.