Trump Names Spy Chief Jay Clayton as AI Czar to Lead New 'Super Intelligence Force'
President Trump named Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton as the administration's new artificial intelligence czar on Sunday, putting him in charge of a new White House task force called the "Super Intelligence Force." Trump announced the move on Truth Social, days after hosting tech executives including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown at a White House summit on AI. Clayton, confirmed to lead the nation's intelligence agencies in July, will keep that job while adding the AI portfolio.
The task force has 120 days to study AI's risks and opportunities and recommend what role the federal government should play. Joining Clayton are Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Pentagon research and engineering chief Emil Michael, and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor. Trump has pushed federal agencies to replace the term "artificial intelligence" with "super intelligence," and Clayton used that phrasing in meetings with tech leaders last week, calling it a national security issue.
Clayton previously chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term and served as acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before Trump tapped him to replace Tulsi Gabbard as intelligence director in May. The appointment marks the second time Trump has designated someone to oversee AI policy across the administration, after naming David Sacks to a similar role earlier in his term. It comes as AI industry leaders, including Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman, have publicly called for a slowdown in development following a string of high-profile AI security failures.
What supporters say:
Putting AI oversight under the intelligence community reflects a real shift in how officials view the technology, with Clayton calling it a national security issue in front of industry leaders.
Clayton's background spanning Wall Street regulation at the Securities and Exchange Commission and now national intelligence gives him rare experience balancing innovation against risk.
A task force with a 120-day deadline forces the administration to produce concrete recommendations rather than let AI policy drift without direction.
Keeping the approach centered in the executive branch, rather than waiting on new legislation, lets the government move faster than Congress on a fast-changing technology.
What critics say:
Folding AI oversight into the intelligence apparatus raises concerns that policy will be shaped by secrecy and national security priorities rather than public accountability or civil liberties.
Clayton is now holding two of the government's most demanding jobs at once, leading critics to question whether AI policy will get sustained attention.
The task force's leadership, Clayton, the FTC chairman, a Pentagon official and the head of the Office of Personnel Management, skews toward administration insiders with little outside technical or civil society representation.
Trump has dismissed AI safety warnings from industry figures like Amodei and Altman as overblown, fueling doubts about whether the task force will produce real guardrails or mostly defer to industry.
What's your take?
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Sources:
NPR: Trump names national intelligence chief Jay Clayton as new AI czar
Daily Wire: Trump's New 'Super Intelligence' Czar Has 120 Days To Deliver
#AI #JayClayton #SuperIntelligenceForce #NationalSecurity #TechPolicy
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