Trump Signals AI Force Creation and Czar Appointment

Two sentences carry the post. Trump wrote that they will not in any way hinder or stifle the growth of this incredible industry, and that rather they will cherish it, help it, and watch over it as it grows. Immediately after, he added that they will also be looking for bad behavior, and that they can do that very easily with the already existing criminal and civil justice system.

To a lawyer, the second sentence is the regulatory blueprint here. It creates no new supervisory body and no prior-authorization regime, and declares that matters will be handled after the fact under general law. Where there is no ex ante regulation, liability is allocated only after something has gone wrong, and the party carrying the burden of proof bears that allocation. That is why a plan to build an organization and a refusal to write rules sit in the same post.

The shape of the organization exists only in words so far. Trump wrote that for this purpose he is forming the AI Force, much as he created the Space Force, which he called a tremendous success in his first term, and that he will announce the AI czar in the near future, adding that only high-IQ individuals need apply. The Space Force was created in 2019 and was the first new US military service since 1947.

According to reports, the White House has already been asked what the czar's duties are, whether a particular person is under consideration, and whether the AI Force will be a branch of the military like the Space Force. No answer has been released. Because budget approval procedures and congressional oversight differ entirely depending on whether it is a military service or an executive-branch body, the size of this announcement is not fixed until that single question is settled.

The czar position has a precedent. Trump appointed David Sacks as White House AI and crypto czar in December 2024. Sacks stepped down in March 2026, saying his time as a special government employee had run out, and now chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. According to reports, he said in a recent interview that fears of AI posing a threat to humanity are overblown, and that while caution is warranted, development should continue.

The other half of the post takes aim at the argument's opponents. Trump grouped Russia, Ukraine, global warming and two impeachments as hoaxes and placed AI at the end of that list. He argued that in the same way global warming was renamed climate change to widen the territory of doubt, the target has now shifted to AI.

Data centers appear in the same passage. He wrote that the attack began with data centers but failed once people realized how wealthy and prestigious those facilities were for their communities, citing higher salaries, lower taxes and safer streets as the result. He then compared AI to the next industrial revolution or the internet, writing that it will be even larger and more impactful, possibly as much as 25 percent of the country's GDP. The close is competitive: they are leading China and the rest of the world, and he intends to keep it that way.

This announcement sits precisely opposite what parts of the industry have been asking for. METAL has reported that Trump's camp rejected calls to slow AI down. According to reports, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei said in a broadcast interview that there are real dangers, and said the industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks. On September 8, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that Anthropic and OpenAI are gambling with our lives by developing self-improving superintelligence.

Calls in the other direction also came from the political side. Former US President Barack Obama said at a fireside chat at Colgate University on Friday that his view that week was that it is good that some of the leading companies have said they need to slow this down, and that it should be encouraged. He said he agreed that leaving the decision to companies cannot be a long-term solution, adding that government has to be regulating this.

The administration's calculation is explained by priorities. According to reports, Trump places outpacing China and preserving AI-driven economic gains above addressing public concern. The same reporting describes AI growth driving stock-market gains and supporting manufacturing through data center construction, while fears about job losses and the effect of data centers on communities have soured public sentiment.

The original post METAL reviewed carries 1,123 replies. The number says something about the nature of the document. This is a single post rather than an executive order or a bill, and so what is settled right now is only a direction of intent. The legal basis for the organization, the scope of the czar's authority, and the standard for what counts as bad have not been written into any document.

Next week's calendar is where that gap may close quickly. According to reports, the Trump administration is expected to convene a high-level AI event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, and a day later a White House state dinner tied to Chinese leader Xi Jinping's visit to Washington is expected to be attended by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai. A White House official said AI safety would be on the agenda when Trump meets Xi.

A promise to handle matters under the law works only where the law already prohibits the conduct. In a design that keeps enforcement after the fact without rules before it, what counts as a violation is decided only once an incident has happened, and the cost in between is paid first by whoever was harmed. What the AI Force will actually enforce has to appear in the next document before the value of this announcement is set.