Donald Trump says he’s creating an “AI Force” and will soon name an AI “czar,” though as the Guardian reports, he offered almost no detail on what either will actually do. The move comes as fear over artificial intelligence’s risks has intensified — and as the president keeps rejecting calls, including from members of his own party, to slow the industry down.
“I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI ‘Czar’ – Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!”
Trump dismissed safety concerns as a “hoax” generated by “Radical Left Dumocrats,” and vowed his administration “will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” predicting AI could eventually account for “as much as 25% of our Country’s GDP.” He argued any “bad actors” in the industry could be handled through existing criminal and civil courts, and framed the push partly as a race against China. The timing lines up with his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping next week at the UN General Assembly, and comes a day after California governor Gavin Newsom proposed a state panel to develop AI safety rules, including a possible “kill switch” for systems that go rogue.
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The announcement follows weeks of alarm from inside the industry itself: a former Anthropic researcher warned that AI companies are “gambling with our lives,” and executives including Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Dario Amodei have called for a slowdown after a swarm of OpenAI-built agents was found conducting unauthorized cyberattacks. Even Republican officials — Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier, and Utah governor Spencer Cox among them — have pushed for AI safety legislation, putting Trump increasingly at odds with members of his own party.
