Trump proposes "AI Force" and new AI czar

The proposal follows David Sacks's departure from the AI and crypto czar role in March, leaving a vacancy Trump has not yet filled. It also lands alongside the White House's March 20 legislative framework, which asked Congress to address child protection, AI scams and national security while calling for fewer barriers to deployment and consistent national rules.

Trump's framing — including his prediction that AI could reach 25% of U.S. GDP and his floated name "Superior Intelligence" — sits against a rival safety argument. In his September essay We Must Pace the Frontier, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slower capability gains so safety work could keep up, combining independent evaluators embedded at labs with safety checks and incident reporting. Sam Altman and Elon Musk also backed slower development, while Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez raised concerns about powerful labs setting rules together.

How the announcement is received may hinge on whether the administration can explain who checks risks and how officials handle wrongdoing. Pew's finding that 52% of surveyed U.S. adults were more concerned than excited, and that 71% expected AI to produce fewer U.S. jobs over the next 20 years, suggests public reassurance could depend on those answers rather than on the force's name.