Trump pledges an 'AI Force' and a new AI czar, and no new federal AI rules

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would form an "AI Force" modeled on the Space Force and name a new artificial intelligence czar, in a Truth Social post that said bad AI conduct could be handled through the existing criminal and civil justice systems rather than by hindering the industry's growth.

"We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry," Trump wrote. "Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows! However, we will also be looking for BAD, and we can do that, very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System." Of the czar job he added: "Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!"

That second sentence is the operative one for anyone deploying AI in a workplace. What Trump described is a statement of intent, not an executive order, a rulemaking or a funded program, and the account rests on his post and the reporting around it. Reuters, CNN, NBC News and others carried the announcement on Saturday; CNN said it had asked the White House for the czar's duties, whether anyone was in mind for the job, and whether the AI Force would be a branch of the military like the Space Force, which Trump created in 2019 as the first new US military service since 1947.

It would be the administration's second AI czar. Venture capitalist David Sacks held the role before stepping down in the spring and moving to an external advisory position, according to Reuters; he now chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Speaking at a Politico event on Wednesday, Sacks said AI developers should be responsible for the safety of their products and could be held liable if problems arise, and that new federal rules are unnecessary. That is roughly the doctrine the post restates: liability after the fact, not compliance obligations in advance.

The announcement arrived into a week of unusually direct pressure. Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that Congress has "maybe a year" to regulate the industry, NBC News reported. Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said this month that "people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has asked companies to slow the pace at which they make models more powerful, a call OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk have backed. Trump has called such fears a hoax and a "SICK conspiracy."

While Washington debates, some state officials are moving ahead with their own AI-related oversight efforts. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Friday seeking greater oversight of the industry and urging a task force to consider requiring a kill switch, according to NBC News. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger has launched an AI task force and a data center accountability plan aimed at what her office described as "growing concern and risks posed by the rapid development of artificial intelligence." Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has called on the federal government to act.

Congress has moved on the adjacent issue rather than the central one. The House passed a bill this week, by 417 to 3, aimed at protecting consumers' utility bills from rising data center power use. Voters in areas that backed Trump have pushed back on new data centers over power, water and land use. Trump defended the facilities on Saturday, calling them "prestigious" and saying they bring "Higher Salaries, Lower Taxes, and Safer Streets."

AI is on the agenda when Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington on Thursday, a White House official told CNN, and the administration will convene a high-level AI event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday. Altman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Google's Sundar Pichai are expected at the state dinner for Xi, according to a White House official.

Trump has described AI as the next Industrial Revolution, with the potential to account for as much as 25% of the US economy, his own characterization rather than an official estimate. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was due to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Sunday at JPMorgan Chase headquarters in New York to discuss AI security, trade and other economic issues, a person familiar with the planning told Reuters.