Jay Clayton’s official portrait as US director of national intelligence, August 2026. Credit: Office of the Director of National Intelligence via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) President Donald Trump has said that Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton would make a good AI czar, Axios reported on Tuesday. Trump has said he wants to name a czar within three or four days. Maria Curi of Axios asked Trump who he wanted for the role.
He said he had someone in mind. When Clayton’s name came up, Trump praised him. “A good man. He’s right here. That’s a good idea,” Trump told Axios.
Trump made that pledge after Tuesday’s White House lunch with tech leaders. Clayton was one of the 31 confirmed guests, according to an attendee list obtained by Axios. At the lunch, six executives signed a voluntary AI accord with Trump. The duties of the AI czar have not yet been set out, Axios reported.
Trump has said he wants to create a new government agency, the AI Force. The venture capitalist David Sacks, who previously held the czar role, also attended the lunch. Clayton on CNBC Clayton spoke to CNBC’s Squawk Box on Wednesday. He twice avoided a direct answer on whether he would accept the czar role if Trump offered it, Dan Mangan reported for CNBC.
As director of national intelligence, Clayton already oversees the 18 agencies of the US intelligence community. “Super intelligence is a national security issue,” Clayton told CNBC. He said everyone at Tuesday’s lunch had recognised that, including the industry leaders. Clayton used super intelligence, the term Trump has ordered federal agencies to use for AI. He also argued against a pause in AI development at US companies.
Leaders of Anthropic and OpenAI have called for a slowdown. Clayton said a pause would mean backing away and letting “the rest of the world develop these models”. On Tuesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren called Trump’s support for industry self-regulation “a recipe for disaster”. Asked about her criticism, Clayton replied that “we have a Federal Trade Commission, we have a Department of Justice”.
He said he knows the leaders of both. He also suggested that federal agencies, rather than the civil courts, are best placed to police AI companies, CNBC reported. On Wednesday, the FTC confirmed that it is investigating OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI labs. Opportunity and threat Clayton was sworn in as the ninth director of national intelligence on 3 August, according to his ODNI biography.
He was previously the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission from May 2017 to December 2020. Earlier, at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, he formed and led its cybersecurity practice. At his confirmation hearing in July, Clayton said the intelligence community saw AI as both an opportunity and a threat, Axios reported. “When something’s both an opportunity and a threat, you better get your arms around it,” Clayton said at the hearing.
Leave a Reply