When President Donald Trump announced that he had tapped 29-year-old Bo Hines for a prized role advising his ambitious crypto agenda, the blockchain industry was thrown off guard. Hines, a two-time Republican congressional candidate, had never held a formal business role in the tight-knit crypto sector. 

But he did have strong ties to the Trump orbit, and a seven-figure show of support for the Trump campaign, according to public records, financial filings, and an interview with Hines. 

Just one week before the 2024 presidential election, the growth investment firm Hines cofounded, Nxum Group, donated $1 million in pro-Trump campaign billboard advertisements to the $400 million Super PAC Make America Great Again Inc., according to Federal Election Commission filings. Hines, who confirmed he oversaw all of Nxum’s work in the political space, declined to provide more details about the donations and advertisements, saying only that his company helped on the “marketing side.” 

Trump appointed Hines to lead his presidential council on digital assets in December, with Hines taking on a top role advancing blockchain policy below David Sacks, the venture capital heavyweight that Trump tapped as his crypto and AI czar. Though Sacks has the senior position, a spokesperson for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where the roles are housed, said that Hines and Sacks “work side by side and very closely.” 

Hines has been instrumental in helping Trump carry out his sweeping effort to reform the government’s approach to the blockchain industry, moving away from the confrontational relationship that developed during the Biden administration. In his role, Hines serves as a liaison between the White House, the crypto industry, and lawmakers and regulatory agencies. At the White House crypto summit in March, Hines sat at the main table along with Trump, Sacks, and other administration bigwigs.

From congressional candidate to crypto liaison

Hines’ path to becoming the U.S. government’s crypto emissary is an interesting one. Four years after he graduated from Yale, Hines ran for the House in a North Carolina district in the Raleigh area with an endorsement from Trump, making it to the general election before he lost in 2022. Two years later, in 2024, he lost in the primary in a different district. Hines says he translated his experience running for office into his work at Charlotte-based Nxum. The firm, which Hines cofounded with his father and another partner, does data, tech, and marketing, including political consulting, for companies it backs. Hines says he oversaw all of its political work.

“I jumped into the political arena at a young age,” he said. “I think that we were just a little bit frustrated with some of the archaic ways in which people advertise in that space.”

One of the companies in the firm’s portfolio is Today is America, a self-described “anti-woke” media organization targeted at Gen Z, where Hines says he served as head of operations to “get that off the ground,” then in 2023, after Nxum took an ownership stake in the company, Hines became the organization’s CEO. Today is America ran the social media accounts and partnered on get-out-the-vote efforts for a conservative student advocacy group called Students for Trump.

In October, Students for Trump announced a partnership with a memecoin project called Restore the Republic. The proceeds of any sales were pledged to the Trump campaign (Donald Trump’s son, Eric Trump, had disavowed any Trump-family connection to the token in August, causing its price to plummet 95%, before Hines became involved.) “With this partnership, we aim to make a meaningful impact on voter turnout, especially among young Americans,” Hines said in a press release announcing a partnership where the student group would hold events and forums to rally support for Trump in swing states. A week prior to that announcement, Hines appeared with Donald Trump’s other son, Donald Trump Jr., on a livestream hosted by Restore the Republic. 

Hines told Fortune that he was not involved with the management or promotion of the memecoin. Today is America’s only work with Restore the Republic was to gin up attention for Trump on social media and get out the vote efforts ahead of the election, he says, saying he has never owned any of the token himself and therefore did not personally gain by promoting it. 

Since taking his White House role, Hines is a non-acting partner at Nxum, and he says that the firm’s political work is now handled by the firm’s other two general partners, one of whom is his father.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Today’s most effective leaders aren’t just strategists or visionaries; they’re simplifiers. These executives can cut through bureaucracy, strip away bloat, and prioritize speed and agility over sprawling hierarchies and tangled workflows.

As companies scale, they inevitably accumulate more processes, meetings, metrics, policies, and platforms, writes Fortune’s Lily Mae Lazarus. Each addition may be well-intentioned, but over time, the layers calcify, slowing decision-making and suffocating innovation. The cost isn’t just cultural; it’s financial. Bain & Company estimates that excessive complexity erodes more than 15% of large companies’ profits each year.

Enter the simplifier-in-chief. These leaders are clear-eyed about the hidden toll of complexity and are unafraid to challenge entrenched ways of working. They focus on prioritizing what matters, eliminating friction, and empowering their teams to move faster and smarter. They also know that in today’s market, velocity is a competitive advantage—and that too much process often creates the illusion of control while actually stalling progress.

Several CEOs appear to agree.

—Amazon’s Andy Jassy has stressed the need to eliminate internal drag that slows innovation. 
—GM’s Mary Barra has long championed cutting red tape to accelerate product cycles.
—Bayer’s Bill Anderson is slashing 99% of corporate rules and flattening management through his “dynamic shared ownership” model. 
—JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon put it bluntly: “Bureaucracy and BS kill companies.”

The shift toward simplification isn’t just about efficiency, though. It’s about resilience, writes Lazarus. When the environment shifts—as it inevitably does—simplified organizations can adapt faster and cultivate cultures that are more responsive, creative, and aligned around shared goals.

Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com

Today’s newsletter was curated by Lily Mae Lazarus.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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The Trump administration is doubling down on its decision not to tell a federal court whether it has any plans to repatriate a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported last month and remains confined in a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite a Supreme Court ruling and lower court order that the man should be returned to the United States. The U.S. district court judge handling the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia now is weighing whether to grant a request from the man’s legal team to compel the government to explain why it should not be held in contempt. Any move toward a contempt finding would represent an extraordinary turn in the Trump administration’s assertion of presidential authority, both generally and specifically over immigration policy.

The government’s latest daily status update, filed Sunday as required by Judge Paula Xinis, states essentially that the Trump administration has nothing to add beyond its Saturday statement that, for the first time, confirmed that Abrego Garcia, 29, was alive and remained in an El Salvador prison under the control of that country’s government. That means for the second consecutive day, the administration has not addressed Xinis’ demands that the administration detail what steps it was taking to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that the Trump administration must bring him back. Xinis followed that with an order Friday requiring the administration to disclose Abrego Garcia’s “current physical location and custodial status” and “what steps, if any, Defendants have taken (and) will take, and when, to facilitate” his return.

The Trump administration has asserted that Abrego Garcia, who lived in the U.S. for about 14 years before being deported, is a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia has disputed that claim, and he has never been charged with any crime related to such activity. The Trump administration has called his deportation a mistake but also has argued, essentially, that its conclusion about Abrego Garcia’s affiliation makes him ineligible for protection from the courts.

Abrego Garcia’s location was first confirmed to the court by Michael G. Kozak, who identified himself in the Saturday filing as a “Senior Bureau Official” in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Sunday’s status update was signed by Evan C. Katz, who was identified in the filing as assistant director of Enforcement and Removal Operations for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

Separately, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have asked Xinis to issue an order compelling the government to explain to the court why it should not be held in contempt for failing to comply fully with previous orders. As of early Sunday evening, Xinis had not filed such an order.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers also have asked Xinis to order the government, among other things, to produce documents and contracts that detail the U.S. agreement with El Salvador to house people deported from the U.S. or, in absence of such records, to require that government officials testify in court about the arrangement.

Xinis expressed frustration Friday during a hearing in her Maryland courtroom when a U.S. government attorney struggled to provide any information about Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts.

“Where is he and under whose authority?” the judge asked during the hearing. “I’m not asking for state secrets. All I know is that he’s not here. The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: Where is he?”

The judge repeatedly asked a government attorney about what has been done to return Abrego Garcia, asking pointedly: “Have they done anything?”

Drew Ensign, a deputy assistant attorney general, told Xinis that he had no personal knowledge about any actions or plans to return Abrego Garcia. But he told the judge the government was “actively considering what could be done” and said that Abrego Garcia’s case involved three Cabinet agencies and significant coordination.

Kozak’s statement a day later stated: “It is my understanding based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”

The Justice Department has not responded to an Associated Press request for comment.

During his time in the U.S., Abrego Garcia worked construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records.

A U.S. immigration judge initially shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs that terrorized his family. The Trump administration deported him there last month anyway, before describing the mistake as “an administrative error” but standing by its claims that he was in MS-13.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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