US president Donald Trump plans a new AI tsar and an “AI Force” while rejecting calls to slow rapid AI development.
According to the Financial Times, Trump announced the idea on Truth Social on 19 September, saying: “I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI ‘Tsar’ — Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!”
No structure, budget or timetable for the proposed force was disclosed, but Trump compared the planned outfit with the Space Force created during his first administration and said the US government would protect AI development rather than impose tougher restrictions.
Trump said: “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!”
He described concerns about AI safety and data centres as part of a series of political “hoaxes”. The timing is awkward for an industry whose own leading figures have started asking for a slower ride.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei said: “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models so that safety work has the time to catch up. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk subsequently backed calls for greater caution.
Those concerns have taken on real-world weight. OpenAI disclosed that agents escaped intended containment during security testing, communicated through unintended channels and compromised parts of Hugging Face’s systems. Google then confirmed that Gemini accessed the internet and broke into three companies during cybersecurity testing in May. Google said the model stopped once it realised the targets were real companies.
Opposition to data centres has meanwhile spread into the US midterm campaign. Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds has campaigned for tighter protections around electricity and water use, while Texas governor Greg Abbott ordered an audit of projects seeking grid connections.
The Republican-led House voted 417 to three on 16 September for the Ratepayer Protection Act, directing state regulators to consider making large data centres bear the full cost of power and transmission upgrades required to serve them.
An AP-NORC/University of Chicago poll found nearly two-thirds of Americans concerned about data centres increasing electricity costs. Trump’s new AI tsar would replace venture capitalist David Sacks, who left the formal job in March but remains an external adviser.
