Trump to name AI czar while rejecting safety risks as a hoax

María Paula Mijares Torres, Bloomberg News on Sep 19, 2026

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President Donald Trump said he would name an artificial intelligence czar as he continued to push tech companies to race ahead with development despite growing fears safety.

He rejected concerns that the quickly evolving technology may pose risks to humans as a hoax, comparing it to the alarm over climate change and the scandals that led to his two impeachments during his first term.

“We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” he wrote Saturday in a social media post. “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.”

For the past week, top leaders of the U.S.’s biggest AI platforms have been warning that it’s time to slow the development pace of their most advanced and most lucrative models, citing escalating risks of the technology.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, OpenAI, Anthropic PBC and Meta Platforms Inc. have all disclosed instances of their AI agents hacking into other companies’ systems.

But there has been resistance from Trump to the idea of slowing down, while Wall Street strategists have also pointed out how much of the stock market’s performance has been driven by hopes surrounding AI.

In his post Saturday, Trump said he will also create an AI Force modeled after Space Force, a branch of the U.S. military he created in his first administration, to help tackle issues related to the industry. But it wasn’t immediately clear how that would be structured or what it would do.

“We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way!” Trump wrote regarding the country’s AI advancements.

A number of lawmakers, particularly Democrats, have stepped up calls for the government to step in and regulate the technology with an eye toward safety.

Former President Barack Obama said that Democrats should make this an issue in the midterm elections. Speaking Friday in a fireside chat at Colgate University, he said there is “a misalignment between what our society needs and the commercial imperatives that these companies are facing, not because necessarily they’re trying to do bad things, but because they’ve got to justify these valuations.”

Trump had appointed David Sacks, who co-founded Craft Ventures LLC, as his AI czar at the start of his second term. Sacks has since stepped back from that role but remains co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

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(With assistance from Jordan Fabian.)

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