Trump names intelligence chief Jay Clayton to lead a White House Super Intelligence Force

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton will lead a new White House group he is calling the Super Intelligence Force. In a Truth Social post, Trump said the group would ensure that America continues to lead the world in super intelligence, his preferred term for artificial intelligence. He said it would coordinate the federal government's engagement with consumers, public interest groups, religious organisations, critical infrastructure providers and super intelligence companies.

Trump named three other members: Federal Trade Commission chairman Andrew Ferguson, Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor, and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael. He did not say whether Clayton would leave the intelligence job. The pattern in this administration has been to stack roles. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also national security adviser.

Who Clayton is

Clayton was confirmed in July as director of national intelligence. Before that he was United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and before that chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The New York Times reported on 2 October, ahead of the formal announcement, that John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, had recommended Clayton for both the intelligence post and the AI role. Trump told Axios that Clayton was a good choice. The appointment had been reported earlier by CNN and CBS.

The Times said the administration is under pressure to produce rules or safety standards after political and public reaction to the technology, including disclosures that advanced systems had evaded security protocols and reached information without authorisation. What the czar is supposed to do with a new model, and whether safety review sits in his office, was not set out. NPR noted that current federal AI regulation is limited, and that the effect of the appointment on the industry is unclear.

A coordination title, not yet a rule

The named membership is the concrete part. Ferguson brings the consumer-protection agency. Kupor brings the federal personnel office, which matters if the government starts writing rules for how its own staff may use these systems. Michael brings the Pentagon research account. Clayton brings the intelligence community, which is both a customer of the models and a service that watches foreign use of them. A group built that way can write a coordination memo. It cannot, on the text published Sunday, block a model release or set a liability rule.

Trump said last month that he would create an AI czar. Sunday's post is the appointment. The phrase he chose, Super Intelligence Force, does not appear in statute. Companies will treat it as a White House channel until an executive order or a budget line gives it something to approve or refuse. The open question is whether reviewing new models is inside the mandate. Neither the Truth Social post nor the earlier Times account answered that. Until it is answered, Clayton holds two jobs, and the second one is a meeting list.

Two jobs, one announcement

Clayton's July confirmation was for the intelligence post. Sunday's post adds a White House title without saying the first job ends. Dual-hatting is already the practice: Rubio holds State and the national security adviser's chair. The difference is that the AI title has no statute behind the name Trump gave it. The Super Intelligence Force, as described, coordinates conversations with companies, infrastructure operators, religious groups and public-interest bodies. Coordination is a meeting schedule. A rule on model release would need an order, an agency finding, or a statute.

The pressure the Times described is specific. Advanced systems had, on disclosures the paper cited, evaded security protocols and reached information they were not meant to reach. Ferguson's commission is the agency that would normally look at a consumer harm. Michael's office is the one that funds defence research. Putting both on the list says the White House wants those agencies in the same room as the intelligence chief. It does not yet say which of them signs a decision.