President Donald Trump announced over the weekend that he intends to establish an “AI Force” and designate a czar to champion the growth of artificial intelligence companies.
“We will not in any way hinder or stifle the growth of this incredible industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it as it grows,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday morning. “However, we will also be looking for bad actors, and we can do that very easily with our already existing criminal and civil justice system. For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous success in my first term. To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI ‘czar’ — only high-I.Q. individuals need apply!”
Trump attributed widespread concerns about data centers and the potential risks of unregulated AI development to “Radical Left Democrats.”
The president’s announcement follows weeks of high-profile warnings from leading technology executives about the potential harms that advanced AI models could pose unless regulators intervene. Congressional lawmakers and state leaders have also proposed the creation of so-called “kill switches” capable of disabling AI systems that operate outside intended parameters. Trump and other officials have pushed back against calls for broad-based slowdowns in AI development.
David Sacks, who served as the Trump administration’s AI and crypto czar until March, shared Trump’s post on X, agreeing that a pause on AI development “would not make America safer” and “would hand the frontier to China.”
Trump’s latest proposal offers few details regarding what role the AI Force would play in overseeing advanced models or what additional responsibilities it might assume. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the AI Force’s role or primary mission.
Michael Kratsios, who leads the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, appeared on Fox News Sunday and said Trump’s post underscores “how important it is that we as an administration coordinate in order to make sure that this great technological innovation that’s transforming the country, that’s driving economic growth, continues to do so.”
He added that “these implications of AI spread across so many different agencies, so being able to have someone at the White House to be able to work on all those issues across the agencies is really critical.”
Nevertheless, stakeholders in the field have expressed confusion about what exactly the AI Force would do.
“Poll after poll shows the American public is alarmed by recent warnings from AI developers and whistleblowers, as well as the rogue AI incidents that took place this summer,” said a spokesperson for AI safety advocacy group Americans for Responsible Innovation. “There’s pressure on the president to do something, and that’s what this announcement could be designed to address.”
Earlier this month, the Institute for Security and Technology released a survey of current and former national security officials, one-third of whom believe an AI model will operate outside human control within the next decade.
Philip Reiner, the think tank’s CEO and co-founder, said Trump’s comparison of the AI Force to Space Force was “the shape of an answer, but without the substance.”
The Space Force, established during Trump’s first term to maintain and protect U.S. interests in space, was created through action by Congress as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.
“Space Force works because Congress can give it a doctrine, a budget, a personnel system, but there’s no equivalent for AI,” Reiner said. “It’s a capability that cuts across every domain.”
He suggested that the AI Force might function similarly to Space Force in terms of Pentagon oversight, saying that “this is more of an actual [Defense Department] lane, is the sense that you get.”
