Trump Announces ‘AI Force,’ Czar Appointment After Industry Titans Urged Caution

President Donald Trump on Saturday announced plans to double down on boosting the development of artificial intelligence despite caution having being urged by industry titans.

Trump, posting to Truth Social, said he plans to form an “AI Force” and appoint an “AI ‘Czar'” in the near future. Trump’s optimism follows Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, xAI CEO Elon Musk, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman each having warned that AI development should slow down after a series of close calls involving its range of functions.

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Trump began the announcement by comparing the backlash against data centers and AI to issues previously addressed by him and his presidential administrations.

“Over the years, there have been many Hoaxes, all generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country,” Trump wrote. “RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, Global Warming, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, Men in Women’s Sports, Transgender for Everyone, and now, the decimation, or destruction, of AI, commonly known as Artificial Intelligence — And I, as President of the United States, will not stand by and let this happen.”

Around 75% of Americans oppose data centers being built near where they live, according to a Gallup poll published in May. Trump previously said in an Aug. 31 post to Truth Social that “China could not be happier” about many Americans’ opposition to data centers.

“It all began with an attack on our Data Centers, until people realized how wealthy and prestigious they were for the Communities in which they were built. Higher Salaries, Lower Taxes, and Safer Streets, was the result, and the crazed Data Center attack has largely failed, so now, in much the same way as they changed the term ‘Global Warming’ to ‘Climate Change,’ in that it covers a much larger ‘territory’ of doubt, they are going straight at AI,” Trump’s Saturday post continued. “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! However, we will also be looking for BAD, and we can do that, very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System.”

The amount of American jobs supported by the data center industry rose from 2.9 million in 2017 to 4.7 million in 2023, according to a February 2025 study by PwC commissioned for the Data Center Coalition. However, California — which has nearly 300 data centers — saw electricity prices rise roughly 96% between 2014 and 2024, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“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 continued. “To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI ‘Czar’ — Only High I.Q. individuals need apply! AI is the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet, but will be even larger and more impactful, possibly as much as 25% of our Country’s GDP. We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way!”

Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House on Sept. 24. AI will likely be among the topics discussed during it, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In a Sept. 12 essay posted on his blog, Amodei called for a three-step plan to temporarily slow down AI development and encourage cooperation between frontier AI companies and governments. The essay follows around 700 of OpenAI’s agentic AI models reportedly performing an unauthorized cyberattack against Hugging Face, an open source AI platform, in July. OpenAI subsequently released an Aug. 26 technical report reviewing the incident.

Altman and Musk also signaled their agreememt with Amodei’s essay that same day.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks,” Altman posted on X.

“Dario is right,” Musk likewise posted.

Trump, however, seemingly argued the concerns raised in Amodei’s essay were hypocritical.

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades! The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a “perfect little angel” – and we will continue to do so,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday. “We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!”