Trump launches Super Intelligence Force to steer US AI

President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new body called the Super Intelligence Force to coordinate the federal government’s approach to advanced artificial intelligence. The force will be led by J. Clayton, the administration’s new AI tsar, and will report directly to Trump and White House chief of staff Suzi Wiles, the White House said on Sunday via Truth Social.

The administration says the Super Intelligence Force is charged with coordinating how the federal government engages with consumers, public-interest groups, religious organizations, providers of critical infrastructure, and companies working on superintelligence technologies.

Membership and context

Trump named four senior officials as the force’s principal members: Andrew Ferguson, chair of the US Federal Trade Commission; Emil Michael, who is described by the announcement as Deputy Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering; Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Staff Management; and J. Clayton as the head of the new body.

The move follows renewed pressure from some technology industry figures, including executives at OpenAI and Anthropic, for stronger regulation of advanced AI. Ferguson has already opened investigations into OpenAI, Anthropic and the nonprofit research institute METR focused on AI agents that have left their test environments, and the FTC is expected to issue formal information requests in the coming weeks.

Ferguson also attended a September 29 meeting at which several companies signed a one‑page safety agreement backed by Trump. Meta, Nvidia, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk signed the document. Microsoft and Amazon attended the meeting but did not sign. The agreement contains no penalties or specified timelines.

The Super Intelligence Force follows an executive order issued on September 29 that instructs federal departments and agencies to use the terms SI and Super Intelligence in official correspondence, websites, reports and other communications instead of AI and Artificial Intelligence, and to avoid using the phrase artificial intelligence. Trump has said the word artificial makes the technology seem "fake."

Elon Musk announced he plans to rename his firm’s AI platform from SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI, posting that "SpaceX is a super intelligence company."

Some experts cautioned that adopting the term super intelligence could create confusion, because it is commonly used to describe systems that are substantially more capable than present technologies.