Trump Appoints Jay Clayton as National AI Czar

President Donald Trump is expected to appoint Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton as the administration's artificial intelligence czar. The appointment follows a White House meeting between Trump and executives from firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic, where the parties agreed that the AI industry would self-police to ensure safety.

Jay Clayton has characterized super intelligence as a national security issue and opposes pausing the development of AI models in the United States, arguing that such a move would allow other nations to lead the technology's implementation. While Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized the self-regulation approach as a recipe for disaster, Clayton asserted that the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are the appropriate bodies to oversee AI companies.

Trump has described AI as the next Industrial Revolution and has announced plans to create an AI Force, modeled after the Space Force. Despite growing pressure for safety standards, Trump has dismissed fears regarding AI's threat to humanity as a hoax and expressed skepticism toward heavy government regulation. A formal announcement regarding Clayton's appointment is expected as soon as Friday.