E92: Adam Neumann's second act, a16z's $350M bet, housing policy, Inflation Reduction Act & more

Chamath’s claim was that global oil production capacity could not materially expand from “roughly current levels” until around 2028–2030, i.e., there was “very little room” to grow supply before then.

Evidence since 2022 shows both realized production and nameplate capacity have already increased materially well before 2028, driven largely by non‑OPEC producers:

• The IEA’s Oil 2023 medium‑term outlook, based on projects already underway and U.S. shale expectations, projected 5.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) of net additional production capacity being brought online over 2022–2028, led by the U.S., Brazil and Guyana. This explicitly contradicts the idea that new capacity could not arrive until 2028–2030. (iea.org)
• IEA Oil Market Reports show global oil supply at record levels: total supply is on track to reach about 103 mb/d in 2024, with non‑OPEC+ output rising ~1.5–1.6 mb/d year‑on‑year, primarily from the U.S., Brazil, Guyana and Canada. (iea.org) This is a multi‑million‑barrel‑per‑day increase versus 2022 levels, indicating that global productive capacity has in fact expanded.
• U.S. EIA analyses estimate world petroleum and other liquids supply rose ~0.6 mb/d in 2024 and is forecast to rise another 1.9 mb/d in 2025 and 1.6 mb/d in 2026, driven by higher output from the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Guyana. (ajot.com) These sustained increases are only possible because new capacity is coming online well before 2028.
• Guyana’s offshore Stabroek block alone has become a major new source of capacity: Exxon and partners reached 900,000 bpd of production capacity by 2025 after the early startup of the Yellowtail FPSO, and the sanctioned project slate targets around 1.3 mb/d by 2027 and 1.7 mb/d by 2030. (corporate.exxonmobil.com) This is a large, concrete addition to global capacity delivered years before 2028.
• Brazil’s pre‑salt developments have also added significant new supply: Brazilian oil output averaged 3.4 mb/d in 2023, up 12.6% from 2022, with the increase coming mainly from high‑productivity offshore pre‑salt fields. (trade.gov)
• Separately, EIA estimates that OPEC+ surplus crude production capacity was about 4.6 mb/d in 2024, more than double 2019, showing there is substantial existing room to expand output—contrary to the claim that there was “very little room” to do so. (energi.media)

Even though the calendar has not yet reached 2028–2030, the falsifiable part of Chamath’s prediction was that material additional capacity could not be added before then. Actual developments—multiple mb/d of new capacity from U.S. shale, Brazil, Guyana and others, plus rising spare capacity—show that this constraint did not hold. On that basis, the prediction is wrong.

As of November 30, 2025, the United States still has no federal, economy‑wide carbon tax or carbon price. Analyses of U.S. climate policy note that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) deliberately relied on subsidies and tax credits rather than a national carbon price, and that the U.S. remains one of the few G20 countries without a nationwide carbon pricing scheme. (hbs.edu)

The IRA did include a methane emissions fee on certain oil and gas facilities, but this is narrower than a general carbon tax and was subsequently overturned by the new Congress in 2025, further underscoring the political difficulty of explicit carbon pricing. (en.wikipedia.org) Meanwhile, explicit carbon‑tax bills such as the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2023 (H.R. 5744) have been introduced in the House but have not advanced beyond committee and have not been enacted. (congress.gov)

These facts are directionally consistent with Chamath’s claim that the IRA “killed” the political prospects of a U.S. carbon tax so far, but his prediction is stronger: he says the idea will “never see the light of day,” i.e., that a federal carbon tax will not be implemented in the long run. Because that is an open‑ended, future‑looking claim, it cannot yet be definitively confirmed or falsified. The most we can say is that, by late 2025, it has not yet been disproven.

Given the indefinite time horizon and the fact that no federal carbon tax has yet been enacted, the correct assessment today is inconclusive (too early to tell) rather than clearly right or wrong.

It is too early to determine whether this prediction is right or wrong. The prediction concerns actual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), specifically that implementation will get the U.S. to about a 40% reduction relative to the baseline target policymakers use (i.e., roughly 40% below 2005 levels vs. the official 50–52% target).

As of November 30, 2025, the year 2030 is still five years in the future, so realized 2030 emissions are unknown. Current analyses (e.g., from Rhodium Group and Princeton REPEAT) project that the IRA could reduce U.S. emissions to roughly 32–42% below 2005 levels by 2030, but those are model projections, not observed outcomes, and are sensitive to implementation details, future regulations, technology costs, and economic conditions. Because the prediction is about what will actually happen by 2030, not what models forecast in advance, it cannot yet be definitively judged.

Therefore, the correct status today is “inconclusive (too early)”.

As of November 30, 2025, it is far too early to determine whether Chamath’s prediction about the long-run timing of solving global decarbonization and climate-change mitigation (specifically that it won’t be meaningfully solved by 2050 and will slip toward 2150–2200) is correct.

Key points:

• The prediction is primarily about outcomes by 2050, 2100, and even 2150–2200. None of these dates has occurred yet, so we cannot validate or falsify the core claim.
• Current global pledges and policies aim for net‑zero CO₂ around 2050 for many major economies (e.g., the EU, US, UK, Japan) and around 2060–2070 for others (e.g., China 2060, India 2070), but these are goals, not outcomes, and implementation gaps remain large according to the IPCC and UN assessments (e.g., the UN Emissions Gap Reports and IPCC AR6 synthesis).
• Recent analyses indicate that, under current policies, the world is not yet on track for 1.5°C and likely not for 2°C either, but they do not imply that all meaningful climate mitigation will necessarily miss 2050 or slip to 2150–2200; long‑term projections are deeply uncertain and contingent on technology, policy, and economics.

Because the prediction’s truth hinges on what happens between now and at least 2050—and more realistically well into the 22nd century—its accuracy cannot yet be judged. Therefore, the only reasonable classification today is “inconclusive (too early)”.

As of November 30, 2025, only a few years have passed since the August 2022 prediction, while the claim explicitly concerns what will happen “over the coming decades.” That makes it too early to determine whether voluntary carbon markets and direct air capture (DAC) will remain marginal or whether they will eventually scale.

On the voluntary/offset carbon market side, developments so far largely validate Chamath’s skepticism about it becoming a central climate solution:

• A major investigation found that about 78–80% of the world’s 50 largest offset projects were “likely junk or worthless,” due to fundamental failings in how their climate benefits were calculated. (theguardian.com)
• A confidential draft assessment for the UN‑linked Science Based Targets initiative concluded that most carbon offsets are largely ineffective at delivering real emissions reductions. (reuters.com)
• The value of the voluntary carbon market fell sharply, dropping around 61% from about $1.9 billion in 2022 to roughly $723 million in 2023, amid a widely described “crisis of confidence” about offset integrity. (ecowatch.com)
• Some large corporates (e.g., Fortescue) have publicly walked away from voluntary offsets as a core decarbonization tool, and regulators (such as the EU) are tightening rules on using offsets in “carbon neutral” claims. (theaustralian.com.au)

However, carbon trading as a whole is not dying: compliance and mixed markets are very large (hundreds of billions of dollars in 2024) and projected to grow, with the voluntary segment only a small part of a much bigger global carbon‐credits system. (globalgrowthinsights.com) This suggests the specific voluntary offset boom has under‑delivered relative to hype, but long‑term structural outcomes are still unsettled.

On the direct air capture side, the picture is more mixed than the “toy projects” language suggests:

• DAC capacity today is tiny: the IEA reports only 27 DAC plants commissioned worldwide, mostly small pilot or demonstration facilities, with just three capturing ≥1,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year. Two larger plants—36,000 t/yr in Iceland and ~500,000 t/yr in the U.S.—are only now coming online. (iea.org) DAC and other carbon‑capture projects together still remove only a fraction of a percent of global CO₂ emissions. (apnews.com)
• At the same time, there is clear evidence that governments and large companies are treating DAC as a serious, potentially commercial industry rather than a side “toy”:
  • Occidental’s 1PointFive is building STRATOS, a 500,000‑tonne‑per‑year DAC plant in Texas, with EPA Class VI storage permits and commercial start‑up targeted for 2025, supported by large tax credits and federal funding. (industrialinfo.com)
  • The U.S. Department of Energy has created multi‑billion‑dollar regional DAC hub programs and follow‑on funding rounds to support mid‑ and large‑scale plants. (energy.gov)
  • Climeworks has raised substantial capital, launched its Mammoth plant (up to 36,000 t/yr), signed large multi‑year removal contracts with blue‑chip corporates, and received DOE support to build large DAC facilities in the U.S., all while publicly targeting megaton‑ and then gigaton‑scale operations by mid‑century. (time.com)
  • Other firms like Avnos have attracted strategic project financing from Shell and Mitsubishi to build commercial DAC demonstration plants, indicating continuing investor interest beyond mere pilot “science experiments.” (axios.com)

In summary:

• Directionally, part of Chamath’s view is supported so far: voluntary offset markets have not become the dominant, trusted climate solution and are undergoing a strong backlash and restructuring.
• But DAC is clearly beyond a "toy" stage in terms of capital commitment and industrial plans, even though it remains minuscule and uneconomic at climate‑relevant scale today.
• Crucially, the prediction is about what will happen over decades. With only about three years of data since the podcast, and DAC just entering its first wave of large plants, we cannot yet say whether DAC will either stall out as marginal or mature into a mainstream, economically robust sector.

Because the core claim is explicitly long‑term and current evidence points in both directions (offsets underperforming hype, DAC still tiny but rapidly capitalized and policy‑supported), the only defensible judgment at this point is “inconclusive (too early)” rather than clearly right or wrong.

Evidence since 2022 strongly supports Chamath’s claim that the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) became a template for other countries’ climate‑industrial policy.

1. European Union – explicit “European IRA” with subsidies and permitting reform

   • The EU launched a Green Deal Industrial Plan and the Net‑Zero Industry Act (NZIA), widely described as the bloc’s direct answer to the IRA and part of a clean‑energy “arms race” triggered by the U.S. law.(carbonbrief.org)
   • European industry groups and the Commission itself frame the Green Deal Industrial Plan as the European answer or mirror to the IRA, intended to nurture a domestic clean‑tech industrial base via large subsidies and relaxed state‑aid rules.(english.bdi.eu)
   • The NZIA specifically introduces faster permitting and one‑stop shops for strategic net‑zero projects, with legally mandated maximum approval timelines (e.g., 9–12 months), and “Net‑Zero Acceleration Valleys” to speed environmental assessments—directly matching Chamath’s emphasis on a subsidy‑ plus permitting‑based framework.(europarl.europa.eu)

2. Canada – tax‑credit‑driven “made‑in‑Canada” response

   • Canada’s 2023 budget created large, refundable investment tax credits for clean electricity, clean‑tech manufacturing, hydrogen, CCUS, etc., explicitly framed by the government as a “Made‑in‑Canada Plan” to keep the country competitive as the U.S. and others roll out clean‑economy subsidies.(canada.ca)
   • Canadian commentary and officials repeatedly describe these measures as a response to the U.S. IRA and its nearly US$400bn in climate‑ and energy‑related subsidies, urging a “made‑in‑Canada response” rather than ignoring the U.S. package.(ottawa.citynews.ca)

3. Broader pattern – multiple countries adopting similar subsidy‑centric frameworks

   • Analyses describe the IRA as having sparked a global “clean‑energy arms race”, with the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan, Canadian and UK green‑industry subsidies, and numerous other national packages framed as efforts to match or compete with IRA‑style incentives.(carbonbrief.org)
   • Commentators note that major economies (EU, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India, etc.) are rolling out subsidy‑heavy climate and industrial policies that “incorporate the similar kind of spirit of the IRA,” supporting Chamath’s idea that others would do “some version of the same thing,” even if not identical in design.(carbonbrief.org)

Given that: (a) the EU and Canada have explicitly structured and marketed new climate‑industrial frameworks as answers or mirrors to the IRA, and (b) a wider set of countries have adopted similar subsidy‑driven, often permitting‑reform‑linked schemes in the years following its passage, Chamath’s prediction that the IRA would become a blueprint and that others would adopt their own versions has largely played out as described.

The core prediction was conditional: if the U.S. passed a streamlined permitting framework for hydrocarbon projects tied to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), then that reform would unleash major fossil-fuel revenues and improve U.S. national security.

1. The specific "framework" tied to the IRA was never enacted.
   • As part of the IRA deal, Democratic leaders promised Sen. Joe Manchin a later vote on comprehensive permitting reform, which he introduced as the Energy Independence and Security Act / Building American Energy Security Act of 2022 and tried to attach to must‑pass bills. (energy.senate.gov)
   • Those permitting packages, which would have created broader, faster permitting for major energy projects (including fossil fuels), were removed from a September 2022 continuing resolution and then failed a cloture vote in December 2022 (47–47), ending that effort for the year. (publicpower.org)
   • A later, more comprehensive bipartisan bill, the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (EPRA), cleared the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee but was never enacted; Manchin later blamed House leadership for blocking inclusion of this bipartisan compromise in a 2024 funding deal. (en.wikipedia.org)
   In other words, the broad, durable permitting framework Manchin and IRA negotiators originally envisioned has not become law.

2. Some partial permitting reforms did pass, but they are narrower and not clearly Chamath’s “framework.”
   • The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (debt‑ceiling deal) included limited National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reforms—time and page limits for environmental reviews and a designation of a lead agency—and a special fast‑track for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. (aga.org)
   • These are real changes to permitting but fall well short of the sweeping, IRA‑adjacent permitting framework that was being discussed in mid‑2022 for a broad set of hydrocarbon projects. So it’s debatable whether the antecedent of Chamath’s conditional (“if we actually pass this framework…”) was ever satisfied in the sense he meant.

3. U.S. fossil‑fuel production and export revenues have surged, but causality is unclear.
   • U.S. crude oil production set new all‑time records in 2023 and 2024 (about 12.9–13.3 million barrels/day), and is projected to remain at or above ~13.5 million barrels/day in 2025–26. (forbes.com)
   • U.S. natural‑gas output and LNG exports also reached record levels; the U.S. has become the world’s leading LNG exporter, with 2023 gas exports up about 10% from 2022 and LNG volumes at record highs. (eia.gov)
   These trends clearly represent large fossil‑fuel revenues, but they reflect a mix of factors: prior investment, shale technology, post‑COVID demand, the Russia‑Ukraine war, and commodity prices. The incremental impact of the limited post‑IRA permitting tweaks (mainly NEPA timeline rules and MVP approvals) on total national fossil‑fuel revenues is not cleanly isolatable from these other drivers.

4. "Improved national security" is inherently subjective and politically contested.
   • Many U.S. officials and commentators argue that high domestic production and expanded LNG exports enhance both U.S. and allied energy security by reducing reliance on adversaries (e.g., Russia), and recent LNG supply agreements with European and Asian partners are explicitly framed in security terms. (forbes.com)
   • At the same time, others argue that climate and economic risks from further fossil expansion undermine long‑term security. There is no objective, widely agreed metric that would let us definitively score “national security improved because of this specific permitting framework,” especially given that the expected comprehensive framework never fully passed.

Why this is rated “ambiguous” rather than right or wrong:

• The prediction is explicitly conditional: it only becomes testable if the U.S. passes the kind of broad hydrocarbon‑permitting framework that was being negotiated with the IRA. That comprehensive framework has not been enacted; only narrower reforms have.
• Although fossil‑fuel revenues and exports have indeed grown and many policymakers link energy abundance to national security, these outcomes cannot be cleanly attributed to the specific permitting reforms Chamath was talking about, because that reform package never truly materialized.
• Sufficient time has passed to observe policy impacts, but the underlying condition was not met in the way described, and the causal link to the observable outcomes is too uncertain.

Given these factors, the truth of Chamath’s conditional claim (“if X passes, Y will happen”) cannot be determined from real‑world developments to date, even though enough time has elapsed—hence the classification as ambiguous.

As of November 30, 2025, there is not enough elapsed time or data to rigorously test a broad, long‑horizon, conditional statement like Chamath’s:

Climate-tech businesses whose unit economics are not contribution-margin positive without Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies, and whose path to profitability depends solely on those subsidies, will ultimately fail as sustainable standalone businesses.

Key reasons this is too early to call:

1. IRA incentives are designed to run for a decade or more. Many of the core clean‑energy tax credits created or expanded by the IRA last at least through 2032, with phasedowns into 2033–2034; for example, the residential clean energy credit remains at 30% through 2032 and then tapers, and key manufacturing credits run fully 2023–2029 and then phase down through 2032. These are still in their early or middle years, not near an endpoint where you could say whether businesses that relied on them have “ultimately” failed or become self‑sustaining. (bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov)

2. The policy is still being actively used and expanded, not withdrawn. Updated budget estimates from the Congressional Budget Office suggest clean‑energy tax subsidies under the IRA will cost on the order of $800+ billion over 2025–2035, reflecting significant ongoing and expected uptake of these subsidies rather than a phase‑out. (reuters.com) If the subsidies are still flowing and in some cases expected to extend beyond 2032, we can’t yet see what happens to firms after that support ends or materially shrinks.

3. Sector outcomes so far show growth, not a shakeout of subsidy‑dependent firms. U.S. solar, for example, had record growth in 2024, accounting for roughly 84% of all new electricity generation capacity added to the grid, with industry analysts explicitly tying this boom to IRA incentives. (reuters.com) A rapid expansion phase supported by subsidies does not yet tell us whether today’s subsidy‑reliant companies will collapse once incentives roll off, consolidate into stronger players, or mature into profitable standalone businesses.

4. The prediction is extremely broad and structurally hard to verify right now. To formally judge it, we would need (a) a clear universe of all “climate‑tech” businesses whose contribution margins were negative pre‑IRA, (b) proof that their path to profitability depends solely on IRA subsidies, and (c) enough time after subsidies end or materially shrink to see whether they fail as stand‑alone entities. None of these conditions are currently satisfied.

Because (i) the core IRA clean‑energy subsidies are scheduled to run well into the 2030s and may effectively persist even longer absent repeal, and (ii) we have only about three years of post‑IRA data with the sector still in a subsidy‑driven expansion phase, the claim that such businesses will ultimately fail cannot yet be validated or falsified. Therefore, the prediction is best classified as inconclusive (too early to tell) rather than clearly right, wrong, or permanently ambiguous.

Evidence shows that the much‑discussed plan to add 87,000 IRS employees under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will not happen, and that actual hiring tied to the IRA is far below that number.

• The 87,000 figure comes from a 2021 Treasury report projecting that roughly 86,852 full‑time employees could be hired over a decade if the IRS received about $80 billion in extra funding. This was always a projection, not a hard statutory hiring mandate. (politifact.com)
• The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and related agreements cut the IRS’s IRA funding by roughly 27% (about $21 billion), immediately rescinding some enforcement and operations money and committing to further rescissions in 2024 and 2025. That materially reduced the resources available for large‑scale hiring. (taxpolicycenter.org)
• By 2024, IRS planning and public fact‑checks reported that, given the reduced funding, the agency expected to hire only about 53,000 employees from 2023–2030 with IRA money—across enforcement, operations, and taxpayer services—not 87,000. (politifact.com)
• IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel explicitly stated that the IRS was “never going to add 87,000 additional employees”, and instead aimed for a “right‑sized” workforce of around 102,500 employees by 2029, up from about 79,000 in 2022—i.e., a net increase on the order of tens of thousands, not 87,000. (federalnewsnetwork.com)
• After the 2025 change in administration, federal policy moved in the opposite direction: a federal hiring freeze and aggressive downsizing programs slashed IRS staffing, with reports of workforce reductions from roughly 100,000 employees toward 60,000–70,000 and large buyouts and layoffs. This makes any future net addition of 87,000 IRS employees not just unlikely but structurally impossible under current law and policy. (en.wikipedia.org)

Taken together, these data show that the government is on track to hire far fewer than 87,000 IRA‑funded IRS employees and that the original 87k headline will never be realized. While the shortfall is driven more by political funding cuts and subsequent workforce reductions than by an inability to find willing applicants, the outcome Chamath forecast—that the U.S. would not end up hiring the full 87,000 additional IRS employees—is correct.

Available evidence is mixed and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) enforcement ramp‑up is still in an early, shifting phase, so it’s not yet possible to say where the bulk of new, IRA‑enabled audits will ultimately fall.

Evidence suggesting the prediction may be wrong (focus shifting to high‑income):

• Treasury’s 2022 directive explicitly ordered that additional IRS resources from the IRA not be used to increase the audit share of small businesses or households under $400,000, and instead be focused on “high‑end noncompliance” (high‑income individuals, large corporations, complex partnerships). (dailywire.com)
• The IRS’s strategic operating plans and public updates emphasize sharply higher audit rates for multimillion‑dollar earners, large corporations, and large partnerships, while pledging not to increase audit rates for individuals and small businesses under $400,000. (investing.com)
• A 2025 TIGTA‑based analysis of the FY 2024 examination plan found that planned audits for taxpayers with income over $400,000 were nearly 2.5× the 2019–2023 average, and that audits for taxpayers at or under $400,000 did not increase, indicating IRA resources were being steered toward higher‑income filers as intended. (accountingtoday.com)

Evidence suggesting the prediction may be right (at least in early practice):

• A Wall Street Journal summary of a TIGTA report noted that, as of “last summer” (early in the IRA rollout), about 63% of new audits were still of taxpayers earning under $200,000, and 80% were of those earning under $1 million, indicating that actual audits continued to fall mostly on non‑ultra‑wealthy filers despite the new funding. (wsj.com)
• CBO and related analyses projected that some portion of the extra revenue from IRA‑funded enforcement would indeed come from taxpayers earning under $400,000, even if characterized as only a “small fraction” of total new revenue, which leaves open how many audits (as opposed to dollars) will land on these groups. (dailywire.com)

Why this is still inconclusive overall:

• The IRA enforcement build‑out is long‑term (through roughly 2031). As of 2024–2025, the IRS has spent only about 10–15% of its IRA funding and is still ramping hiring; Congress has also cut and reprogrammed portions of that funding. (nysscpa.org) The oft‑cited “tens of thousands” of new personnel are only partially in place, so the full pattern of incremental audits attributable to those hires has not yet emerged.
• Most published data and watchdog reports either (a) describe overall audit patterns (heavily influenced by legacy practices and pre‑IRA staffing) or (b) describe plans and targets for high‑income audits, not a completed, multi‑year record of IRA‑driven audit outcomes broken out cleanly by income band.

Because (1) implementation of the IRA audit expansion is incomplete and evolving, and (2) the available statistics don’t isolate the long‑run, incremental audits created by the “tens of thousands of additional agents” Chamath was talking about, we can’t yet decisively say that the bulk of those new audits are landing on middle/upper‑middle taxpayers and small businesses rather than the ultra‑wealthy—or vice versa. Hence the prediction is best rated as inconclusive (too early to tell).

Budget and policy analyses indicate that Sacks’s conditional claim about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) math is not supported.

1. Baseline IRA deficit reduction. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimated that the IRA as passed would reduce federal deficits by about $305 billion over 10 years (roughly 2022–2031). (crfb.org)

2. What credible analysts said about permanently extending the ACA subsidies. CRFB explicitly modeled the case Sacks was talking about: assume the enhanced ACA subsidies are made permanent instead of temporary. Their memo reports that under this assumption, the IRA would still reduce deficits by about $155 billion over the decade, not increase deficits by $155 billion. In other words, permanent subsidies shrink the deficit reduction from ~$305b to ~$155b; they do not flip it to a $155b deficit increase. (crfb.org) This directly contradicts Sacks’s statement that “just that one item” would take the bill from –$305b (deficit reduction) to +$155b (deficit increase).

3. Later CBO scoring of a permanent extension. More recent CBO/JCT analysis of the Biden administration’s plan to make the enhanced ACA subsidies permanent estimates that such a policy would increase federal deficits by about $335 billion over 2025–2034, plus roughly $48 billion in extra interest costs (around $383b total). (budget.house.gov) Even if you crudely overlay that on the original IRA score, it implies at most a relatively modest net deficit increase over ten years, nowhere near the roughly $460 billion swing (from –$305b to +$155b) that Sacks asserted.

4. The conditional event hasn’t even happened yet. As of November 30, 2025, the enhanced ACA subsidies extended by the IRA are still scheduled to expire at the end of 2025; Congress has debated but not enacted another extension. (commonwealthfund.org) So Sacks’s antecedent (that the three‑year extension is renewed instead of sunsetting) has not occurred. But even in the modeled scenario where it does occur, the best available budget estimates do not match his claim.

Because both contemporaneous and later official budget analyses show that making the enhanced ACA subsidies permanent would at most substantially reduce the IRA’s deficit savings and, in some estimates, still leave it deficit‑reducing rather than turning it into a bill that increases the deficit by about $155 billion, Sacks’s prediction about the fiscal effect of renewing the subsidies is wrong.

There is now substantially more public information about the FBI unit that handled the Mar‑a‑Lago search—primarily the Washington Field Office (WFO)—and about its other Trump‑related investigations, but whether this amounts to proven "prior misconduct" is contested.

1. Identification of the unit and new details about the Mar‑a‑Lago search

• The redacted search‑warrant affidavit, released after the podcast in late August 2022, confirmed that the affidavit was sworn by an FBI agent in the Washington Field Office, clarifying that WFO rather than the Miami Field Office played the lead role. (theguardian.com)
• Subsequent reporting, such as a 2023 Washington Post piece, described internal FBI debates and reluctance by some field agents to pursue aggressive steps against Trump, citing a “hangover of Crossfire Hurricane” (the 2016 Trump‑Russia probe) and fear that investigating Trump could damage careers. (washingtonpost.com)
• Former WFO chief Steven D’Antuono later told congressional investigators it was unusual for WFO—not the Miami Field Office—to run the search, and he criticized aspects of DOJ’s handling, explicitly connecting his concerns to lessons learned from Crossfire Hurricane. (clintonfoundationtimeline.com) These are real new details about how that unit conducted the search, consistent with Sacks’s view that “there’s still more to come out.”

2. Information about prior Trump‑related investigations by the same field office

• Crossfire Hurricane (the 2016 Trump‑Russia case) had already been heavily scrutinized before August 2022. The DOJ inspector general’s 2019 report found 17 significant errors and omissions in FISA applications involving Trump adviser Carter Page, and special counsel John Durham’s 2023 report reiterated that the FBI and DOJ “failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law,” although it largely re‑hashed known problems and recommended no major structural changes. (en.wikipedia.org) These issues involved FBI headquarters and earlier teams and were not new revelations about the specific WFO unit that carried out the Mar‑a‑Lago search.

• More directly tied to WFO, in 2025 Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson released internal documents about Operation Arctic Frost, a 2022 FBI counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election that was opened and run out of the Washington Field Office. (en.wikipedia.org) Their materials allege that WFO Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Timothy Thibault improperly opened and approved the case himself (a claimed breach of FBI protocol) and that his prior anti‑Trump social‑media activity showed political bias—characterizing this as serious misconduct. (grassley.senate.gov) However:

  • The same documentary record (e.g., the Arctic Frost summary and independent commentary) notes that DOJ leadership formally approved the investigation and that some experts say its opening was consistent with FBI/DOJ policy. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • As of November 2025, no inspector general report or court ruling has formally found Arctic Frost or the WFO unit to be unlawful or in violation of binding rules; the strongest condemnations come from political actors (Trump officials, Grassley, Johnson, etc.), and the FBI and Jack Smith’s team have defended the investigation as lawful. (en.wikipedia.org)

3. Assessment of the prediction

• Sacks’s narrow statement—“I think there’s still more to come out about this”—is clearly borne out: we have considerably more detail today about the FBI Washington Field Office’s role in the Mar‑a‑Lago search and its involvement in other Trump‑related probes.
• The normalized stronger version of the prediction—that future revelations would show prior misconduct by that unit in investigations involving Trump—is only partially and controversially supported:
  • There are now detailed public allegations and internal documents suggesting protocol breaches and bias in a WFO‑run Trump investigation (Arctic Frost), which critics and some officials explicitly label as misconduct. (grassley.senate.gov)
  • But these claims remain hotly disputed, and no neutral adjudicator (court or inspector general) has definitively classified the WFO’s conduct as misconduct.

Because the existence of additional significant information is unquestionable, but the central question—whether it definitively establishes “prior misconduct” by the Mar‑a‑Lago unit—depends on contested, partisan interpretations rather than settled findings, the fulfillment of the normalized prediction cannot be cleanly scored as simply right or wrong. Hence the judgment here is ambiguous.