In December 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Michael as Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

Born in Cairo, Egypt, Michael is a Coptic Christian who moved to the United States with his family in the early 1970s.

[6] After law school, Michael served as an Associate in the Communications, Media and Entertainment Investment Banking Group at Goldman Sachs in New York.

[27] On November 17, 2014, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith reported that Michael, then a senior executive at Uber, had "outlined the notion of spending 'a million dollars'" to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists to look into "personal lives, your families" of journalists who covered Uber and its executives.

Michael, who said he believed his conversation was "off the record," later claimed merely to have asked why journalists can write what he thought were false stories and attack pieces about business people.

[28][29] He targeted Sarah Lacy, a journalist who worked for Pando Daily, who had reported on Uber's misogynist practices and culture.

[30] Uber CEO Travis Kalanick later made a series of apologetic tweets, claiming that Michael's comments did not represent the company's views.

[32][33] In 2014, several local Uber employees in Seoul, South Korea, invited Michael to join them at a "hostess escort-karaoke bar" during a business trip.

[40][41] In August 2019, it was revealed that Michael was considered for the job of Secretary of Transportation as President Donald Trump was forming his first government in early 2016.

[42] In 2020, Michael, as chairman and CEO of DPCM Capital, planned to file for an initial public offering of $250 million for a blank-check company.

[43] In December 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Michael as Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.