President Trump on Sunday named Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton the White House's AI czar. Clayton will hold both jobs, keeping the DNI post while spearheading the administration's AI strategy.
Trump announced the move on Truth Social, saying the new "Super Intelligence Force" will "ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence." Its vice chairs are FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, OPM Director Scott Kupor and Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael. Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also sit on it, and it reports to Trump and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
The force has 120 days to report on the risks and opportunities of the technology and to recommend ways to strengthen the government's response. Its charter, according to Implicator, calls for "preventing overregulation and regulatory capture that would stifle innovation and competition."
Clayton takes a job last held by David Sacks, who stepped down as White House AI and crypto czar in March and now co-chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Sacks is one of two outside advisers to the force, along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Bessent had been mentioned for the job until Trump ruled it out on Sept. 25. "Scott Bessent will not be going to be Super Intelligence (SI) Czar," Trump wrote. "Number One, he doesn't want to. Number Two, he's doing such a great job at Treasury, and that's where I want to keep him! Why would I ever make such a change? Just more Fake News!" Axios reported Friday that Trump was expected to pick Clayton instead, and Trump has described Clayton as "a good man" for the role.
The pick comes three weeks after a run of statements on AI safety. On Sept. 12, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier" that proposed embedded third-party evaluators inside AI labs. The next day, Obama urged Democrats to have a "clear plan" for AI safeguards, and Sacks backed a self-imposed slowdown by the labs while rejecting a "cartel" framework for it, according to the Washington Examiner.
Trump responded on Sept. 14 with a Truth Social post: "The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!" He also took aim at Amodei by name:
"The Trump Administration has stopped AI 'people' from doing bad, or potentially bad, 'things,' like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a 'perfect little angel' and will continue to do so!" He added: "We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!"
Ten days later, Trump rebranded AI as "super intelligence" at the UN General Assembly and rejected "any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control" it. Four days after that, he hosted Amodei for dinner at the White House. The next day, Amodei, Elon Musk, Google's Sundar Pichai, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and OpenAI's Greg Brockman were among the signers of a voluntary accord pledging "robust" controls on their models and independent audits. Trump called it "morally binding."
Clayton, who sidestepped questions about taking the job in a CNBC interview on Sept. 30, called super intelligence "a national security issue" and questioned what an AI pause would even mean while other countries keep building. At his July 15 confirmation hearing, the former SEC chairman and US attorney for the Southern District of New York said AI "is not only an opportunity but a threat." He added: "When something is both an opportunity and a threat, you better get your arms around it."