Donald Trump is expected to appoint Jay Clayton, the US director of national intelligence, as the country's next AI czar, according to CNN and other outlets citing unidentified sources on Friday.

CBS News was first to report that Clayton is the frontrunner for the role. A White House official, however, told CBS that any such announcement would come directly from the president, dismissing the reports as speculation.

Clayton led SEC during Trump's first term

If appointed, Clayton would take on the artificial intelligence portfolio while remaining in his current post as director of national intelligence, the sources told CNN. The Senate confirmed him in July to lead the intelligence community.

Clayton chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump's first term and later served as interim US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Asked about artificial intelligence during his confirmation hearing, he described the technology as a “game changer” that is “not only an opportunity but a threat,” according to CNN.

Trump's push to organize federal AI oversight

The reported pick follows the president's earlier moves to formalize oversight of AI. Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 20 that Trump planned to create an “AI Force” modeled after the Space Force and appoint an artificial intelligence czar. In a post on Truth Social, the president said the new project would manage the fast-growing AI sector without adding regulations that could slow innovation.

Trump's actions came after several public warnings about the potential dangers of AI. Cointelegraph reported on Sept. 12 that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had written a three-step proposal to pace the speed of AI development, warning that unchecked systems might “outrun our ability to understand and control these systems.”

Anthropic subsequently named Accenture as an embedded evaluator to help moderate the pace of AI development, moving ahead with the first step outlined in Amodei's proposal. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded positively to the plan, although Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang did not, arguing that such regulation was not necessary.

On Tuesday, Trump gathered AI and technology chiefs at the White House to sign a commitment to “self-police” their companies' AI models and development, Cointelegraph reported.

A short-lived precedent

Clayton would not be the first official to hold a combined crypto and AI mandate. Cointelegraph reported in March that David Sacks, a venture capitalist who became a special White House official under Trump last year, had wrapped up a 130-day tenure as crypto and AI czar. Under US rules, such special government employees are limited to 130 days of work in a 12-month period. The sources described a different setup for Clayton, with the AI portfolio added to a Senate-confirmed intelligence role, and the reports did not mention any comparable time limit for the arrangement.

“We've now used up that time,” Sacks told Bloomberg in March, noting that he would continue making policy recommendations across a broad range of tech industries as co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Source: Cointelegraph