Trump Says He Is Forming an 'AI Force,' 'Much Like I Did Space Force,' and Will Name an AI Czar Soon: 'Only High I.Q. Individuals Need Apply!' He Called Superintelligence Fears a Hoax, Said AI Could Be 25% of GDP, and Promised Not to 'Hinder or Stifle' the Industry in Any Way.
The Saturday Truth Social post gave no structure, budget, authority or name for the new body. It landed a week after Anthropic's Dario Amodei told CBS the industry 'lied to people' about AI's risks and after four subscribers sued the top labs for agreeing to slow down.
President Trump announced Saturday that he is creating an "AI Force" and will soon name an "AI Czar" to oversee it, framing the move as the government's answer to a wave of warnings from inside the industry that artificial intelligence is advancing faster than anyone can control. The announcement came in a Truth Social post that offered no detail on where the new body would sit, what powers it would have, who would staff it or how it would differ from the White House AI offices that already exist.
"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," Trump wrote. He said the czar would be announced "in the near future" and added: "Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!" The comparison to Space Force, which Congress created in 2019 as a sixth branch of the military, is one the president has leaned on before, but the post did not say whether the AI Force would be a military organization, a civilian agency or an advisory panel.
What the post did make clear is the direction. Trump described fears that AI could become a superintelligence capable of threatening humanity as a hoax, and he ruled out any federal brake on the industry. "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 wrote. "However, we will also be looking for BAD, and we can do that, very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System." He called AI "the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet," and said "it will be even larger and more impactful, possibly as much as 25% of our Country's GDP" as the United States races China.
The timing is not accidental. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly urged the industry to slow down earlier this month, and told CBS News "Sunday Morning" that "there are real dangers" with AI, adding that the "industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks." On Sept. 8, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives" by building self-improving systems. The leading labs then reached an agreement on Sept. 12 to go slower, a pact that has already drawn a price-fixing lawsuit from four paying subscribers who argue competitors cannot lawfully decide among themselves that competition is too dangerous. Trump's Saturday post was, in effect, a declaration that the White House sides with the accelerators.
The czar job itself is not new. Trump appointed venture capitalist David Sacks as the "White House A.I. & Crypto Czar" in December 2024. In March 2026, Sacks said his time in the role as a special government employee was up, and the post has effectively been vacant since. In an interview with CBS News last week, Sacks said he believes fears about AI's threat to humanity are overblown and that, while caution is warranted, development should continue.
Trump has spent the past week making the same argument in public. He phoned Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang onstage at a Los Angeles investor event on Sept. 16 and told the crowd that AI taking over is a hoax, and Huang has separately rejected extinction warnings and said the industry should build "as fast as we can." Wall Street has been less sure: chip stocks sold off after Amodei's essay, and the debate over whether the biggest labs are racing or colluding is now playing out in federal court.
Trump did not identify any candidates for the czar position, and the White House has not released a memorandum, executive order or budget request to accompany the AI Force. Until one appears, the "force" exists as a name and a promise. What is concrete is the policy: the administration has decided that the way to police AI is after the fact, through prosecutors and lawsuits, rather than before, through rules on how fast the technology is allowed to grow.
Originally reported by CBS News.