President Trump Names Jay Clayton As AI Czar and Head of ‘Super Intelligence Force’

President Donald Trump has tapped Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton as the administration’s AI czar, putting him in charge of the newly created “Super Intelligence Force,” which will coordinate the federal government’s approach to increasingly advanced artificial intelligence. 

The group’s mission is to confront the threats AI could pose to Americans, critical infrastructure, and national security without strangling innovation under the familiar weight of federal overregulation. It will review how agencies are notified of AI-related breaches, hacks, jailbreaks, and other system failures, then recommend ways to improve the government’s ability to respond including under authorities it already has.

Trump announced the group Sunday in a Truth Social post, naming Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Pentagon Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering and Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael, and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor as its other leaders. The task force is expected report to Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. 

Its first assignment will likely set the administration’s broader AI agenda. Within 120 days, the group will deliver a report examining the technology’s risks and opportunities and recommend what role the federal government should play in overseeing it. 

“I am announcing the formation of the Super Intelligence Force (SIF). The Super Intelligence Force is tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence, which many say is bigger than the Industrial Revolution, and the Internet, and will protect the interests, and improve the lives, of all Americans.” – President DONALD J. TRUMP 🇺🇸

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 4, 2026

“Following the Historic White House Accord on Super Intelligence, where the World’s most important Technology Companies came together, and confirmed their responsibilities to the American People, I am announcing the formation of the Super Intelligence Force (SIF),” the president wrote on Truth Social over the weekend. “The Super Intelligence Force is tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence, which many say is bigger than the Industrial Revolution, and the Internet, and will protect the interests, and improve the lives, of all Americans.”

The Super Intelligence Force will coordinate the Federal Government’s engagement with Consumers, Public Interest Groups, Religious Organizations, Critical Infrastructure Providers, and Super Intelligence Companies, and will be led by Director of National Intelligence, Jay Clayton, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer, Emil Michael, and Director of the Office of Personnel Management, Scott Kupor, and will report to the President of the United States (ME!), and the Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.

“The president asked that a group be put together that was going to ensure exactly what he said,” Clayton said, according to the Wall Street Journal, that “we stay the leaders in superintelligence, and that the interests of the American people are put first.”

“The risk of not being first is high,” Clayton said. “Not being first increases the identified, and unidentified, risks, particularly from our adversaries. Being first will better enable us to address those risks on behalf of the American people.”

This comes as the Trump administration has largely resisted the wave of AI doomerism that has swept through public debate. Claims about imminent rogue-AI attacks and portrayals of the technology as sentient often rely more on science-fiction anxieties than on the actual state of the technology. 

Even some of the industry’s biggest companies have called for new regulation, a move the administration has rightly treated with skepticism, given the obvious risk of regulatory capture. The administration has instead emphasized competition and innovation, arguing that existing laws and agencies should be used to address concrete harms rather than building a new federal bureaucracy around hypothetical ones. 

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has already said the commission is investigating AI companies over alleged rogue-AI incidents, an inquiry that could ensure the people responsible for those breaches are held accountable, rather than allowing them to blame an inanimate tool.

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