Yale University (B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Economics)
Stanford University (MBA)
Occupation
Government official; entrepreneur
Known for
Co-founder and CEO of Airkit; leadership roles at Salesforce; GSA Administrator
Stephen Ehikian (born 1980or1981)[3] is the Deputy Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA).[4] Ehikian was appointed Acting Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the GSA on January 21, 2025.[5] In March 2025, he delegated the responsibilities of Deputy Administrator to senior adviser Mike Lynch.[6] In July 2025, he was replaced as Acting Administrator by Michael Rigas, but remained at GSA in his role as Deputy Administrator.[7] Prior to GSA, Ehikian was the Vice President of AI Products at Salesforce and cofounded a startup named Airkit.ai.[8]
Stephen Ehikian obtained undergraduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Economics from Yale University.[9][10] He later obtained a Master of Business Administration degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business,[11] which he pursued jointly with a master of science degree in Environment and Resources.[12]
Early in his career, Ehikian worked in the finance sector with positions at Morgan Stanley, Westbrook Partners, and SRS Investment Management.[13]
Ehikian is from Atherton, CA.[14] He is married to married to Andrea Conway, who was a designer at X.[15] His brother is Brad Ehikian, partner at Palo Alto-based commercial real estate firm Premier Properties.[16]
Business career
RelateIQ
After completing his MBA, Stephen Ehikian served as COO of startup RelateIQ,[17] which was founded by Palantir alumni Steve Loughlin and Adam Evans in 2011 in Palo Alto, CA.[18] RelateIQ was a sales-intelligence startup that automatically captured data from email, calendar, phone records, and other communications to provide real-time insights and recommendations for managing customer relationships.[19] RelateIQ raised $9 million in Series A funding from investors Accel, Morgenthaler and SV Angel.[20] It emerged out of stealth in June 2013 announcing a $20 million Series B round lead by Formation 8 (Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale’s venture capital firm) an Accel.[20] It then raised a $40 million Series C round in March 2014 at a $245 million valuation.[21] In July 2014, Salesforce acquired RelateIQ in a stock swap transaction valued at $350 million in Salesforce shares, plus $40 million from RelateIQ’s cash balance, for a total acquisition price of $390 million.[22] Ehikian and Evans continued working at Salesforce post-acquisition.[23]
In September 2015, as part of the 2015 Dreamforce conference, RelateIQ was rebranded as SalesforceIQ.[24] On March 13, 2020, the SalesforceIQ product was retired.[25]
Airkit.ai
In 2017, Ehikian and Evans, left Salesforce to co-found the startup originally known as Ruist, later rebranded as Airkit, and subsequently Airkit.ai in stealth mode in Palo Alto, CA. The startup offered a low-code customer engagement platform for businesses to quickly build digital customer applications and workflows without extensive coding expertise.[26] It charged businesses a subscription fee for the license to use its platform to build apps, and it also charged based on the volume of usage. Ehikian served as CEO and Evans as CTO.[26] Airkit emerged from stealth mode in October 2020, announcing it had raised $28 million in funding from investors Accel (by then Loughlin was a partner at Accel), Emergence Capital, and Salesforce Ventures including a $21 million Series A round in January 2020.[26] Airkit announced a $40 million Series B round led by EQT Ventures in May 2021.[27]
In August 2023, the company rebranded as Airkit.ai and launched Airkit.ai eCommerce, a platform powered by ChatGPT-4 for retail brands to build autonomous customer-service AI agents.[28][29] In October 2023, Salesforce signed an agreement to acquire Airkit for an undisclosed amount after which Airkit was integrated into Salesforce’s Service Cloud, with Evans continuing as head of that business unit.[30] Ehikian also continued working at Salesforce on AI products.[31]
Salesforce used technology from the acquisition to launch Agentforce, its platform that allows companies to build and deploy autonomous AI agents.[32][33]
Career as Trump administration political appointee
Ehikian was appointed Acting Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the GSA on January 21, 2025.[34] As acting administrator of GSA, Ehikian oversaw federal real estate and buildings, technology services, and $110 billion in federal contracts.[4] During his first week as acting administrator, Ehikian outlined his goals of relocating agencies outside of D.C., removing DEI, environmental, and climate mandates on federal building construction and GSA contractors, and downsizing GSA's building portfolio.[35] In February 2025, the GSA notified staff that it intended to reduce total spending by 50% across all programs and personnel.[36] GSA announced the reduction of its real estate portfolio by 50%, and plans to terminate 660 building leases by the end of 2025.[37]
In July 2025, Ehikian was replaced as acting administrator by Michael Rigas and moved into a supporting deputy director role within GSA.[38]
Workforce Reductions
In February 2025, Ehikian called for cutting GSA's largest division, the Public Building Service, by more than 3,500 employees or 63% of the total workforce.[39] In February 2025, the GSA dismissed about 100 tech workers within its Technology Transformation Services who were in their one year probationary period and, therefore, had weaker job protections.[40] Various offices within the agency were called to meetings to justify their positions to Ehikian and other political appointees. Senior executives called those meetings "murder boards."[41] Ehikian was a proponent of using artificial intelligence to reduce headcount with some GSA employees being asked to identify ways AI could automate their work responsibilities.[41]
On Saturday, March 1, 2025, the GSA eliminated 18F, a digital consulting office within GSA's Technology Transformation Services (TTS), and fired its 70 tech workers at 1 a.m.[42] 18F employees reported that they had been locked out of their computers and emails, and that they could not find out where to return equipment.[43] 18F had previously been the target of false claims from rightwing activists and from Elon Musk that it was a far-left cell inside the government.[44] On March 3, 2025, the GSA issued reduction-in-force notices to approximately 600 employees with nearly 40% of the staff at its San Francisco, CA office being let go.[45] Then, on March 5, 2025 the agency issued reduction-in-force notices to more than 90% of its 200 employees at the northwest region of its Public Buildings Service.[45] On March 6, 2025 the GSA issued notices to nearly all its staffers (over 100 staffers) at the Office of the Chief Financial Officer in the Washington DC area.[45]
By May 2025, over 2,100 GSA employees had accepted deferred resignations and the GSA had laid off about 1,000 employees for a total reduction of nearly 25% of its workforce.[46]
Ehikian stated that the workforce reductions were about "moving people from maybe lower productivity roles to a higher productivity in the private sector."[47]
Attempted purchase of USGS Menlo Park campus
On February 3, 2025, two weeks after Ehikian's appointment, the GSA received an unsolicited offer from Ehikian's younger brother and Bay Area real estate developer, Brad Ehikian, to purchase a federally-owned 17-acre property in Menlo Park, CA in the heart of Silicon Valley for $65 million.[48] The Ehikian brothers had previously co-owned and transacted commercial real estate such as a warehouse and retail property in Redwood City that they bought for $1 million in 2003 and sold for $1.2 million the following year.[48] The property, named Rockaway Grove, housed the United States Geological Survey and contained laboratories, office space, a child care facility, and a credit union across 17 buildings.[49] The GSA had previously tried to sell the property in an auction in August 2022 with a minimum bid of $120 million but the auction closed without a buyer.[48][50]
The unsolicited offer prompted a complaint to the GSA inspector general's office that a relative of the acting administrator was trying to buy a property at below-market value.[48] A GSA spokeswoman stated that Stephen Ehikian had recused himself from his brother's proposal.[48] The GSA informed all interested parties that it intended to sell the property in a public auction. Brad Ehikian withdrew his offer on February 16, 2025.[3] The GSA launched a sealed-bid auction to sell the property on February 28, 2025 with a minimum bid of $85 million.[48] The auction closed on April 15, 2025, and the property sold to San Francisco-based Presidio Bay Ventures who placed an all-cash offer of $137 million.[51] The auction received three qualifying bids with the second-highest bid being $120 million.[52] Presidio Bay Ventures announced on August 11, 2025 that it would begin hosting community meetings to determine what to build on the campus.[53]
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