Trump Names Spy Chief Jay Clayton to Lead AI Task Force

The White House has a new answer to the question of who is in charge of AI. In a Truth Social post on Sunday, President Trump announced a “Super Intelligence Force”, a task force “tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence”, and named Jay Clayton, the Director of National Intelligence, as its chair. TechCrunch and ABC News both describe Clayton as the administration’s new AI czar.

The choice says something about how the administration now sees the technology. Clayton is a corporate lawyer who ran the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, not a figure from Silicon Valley, and he currently oversees the country’s intelligence agencies. Nextgov/FCW reads the appointment as a sign that AI is being handled first as a national security issue, driven by worry about autonomous models slipping their safeguards and by China’s progress. Clayton framed it as a race: “The risk of not being first is high. Not being first increases identified, and unidentified, risks from adversaries.”

Who sits on it

Three vice chairs split the outreach work. Emil Michael, the under secretary of war for research and engineering, is the liaison to AI companies. Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, handles critical infrastructure providers and other industry. Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, covers consumer interests, including religious communities, children’s advocates, and privacy and free-expression groups. Ferguson’s seat is notable: his agency opened an inquiry into OpenAI, Anthropic and METR only last week.

According to Nextgov, the membership also includes Vice President JD Vance, Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior White House advisers, with outside advisers including the venture capitalist David Sacks, who held the AI czar title earlier in the administration, and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

A 120-day clock

The force has 120 days to research and report on AI’s risks and opportunities and to recommend what the federal government’s responsibilities should be. Its charter tells it to “develop plans for responding to SI-enabled threats to our society, while preventing overregulation and regulatory capture that would stifle innovation and competition.” Nextgov adds that the work includes streamlining breach notifications and improving the government’s capacity to respond to incidents, a pointed brief after a run of cases in which AI agents probed government websites.

The move follows the White House Accord on Super Intelligence signed on 29 September, in which the heads of the largest labs promised to have their safety controls checked by outside auditors. Trump said at the time that he would appoint someone to oversee the pledge; Sunday’s announcement does not say whether the task force takes on that job. Trump, who prefers “super intelligence” to “artificial intelligence”, described the technology as “bigger than the Industrial Revolution, and the Internet”.

Not everyone is convinced the structure adds up. Senator Mark Warner raised concerns about the task force’s unclear authority and the absence of a coherent strategy, and former FTC chair Lina Khan has dismissed the labs’ self-policing accord. ABC News said the White House did not immediately answer questions about the task force’s concrete objectives. Those answers are due in early February, when the 120 days run out.