Trump Names Jay Clayton to Lead Super Intelligence Force With 120-Day Review
President Trump announced Sunday that DNI Jay Clayton will lead a new Super Intelligence Force with 120 days to shape federal AI policy amid Cabinet divisions.
President Trump has crowned Jay Clayton, the Director of National Intelligence, as the helm of the administration's artificial intelligence portfolio, announcing Sunday that Clayton will lead a newly minted "Super Intelligence Force." Clayton told The Wall Street Journal the task force will have 120 days to report on the technology's risks and opportunities and recommend the government's role.
According to Nextgov, the power lineup reads like a who's who of the West Wing: Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sit on the task force alongside three vice-chairs, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson. Venture capitalist David Sacks, who served as AI and crypto czar until March, joins as an external advisor.
The announcement follows Trump's September 29 executive order directing federal agencies to refer to AI as "super intelligence," and lands amid the President's public opposition to regulations that could slow U.S. competition with China, even as he has vowed to hunt for "BAD" in AI development.
According to Axios, the task force brings fiercely divided Cabinet factions under one roof, with new rules likely to emerge amid competing internal camps. As Kupor insists there is "no daylight between the president and anyone else," critics like Rep. Don Beyer warn that a task force cannot replace federal regulation, and former Biden official Arati Prabhakar argues safety and innovation are not trade-offs.
The corridors of power have never looked so crowded, or so gloriously contested.
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Sources
Meanwhile at the anchor desk
The 120-day report has a deadline; the announcement gives no measurement framework for coordination. The executive order renames the field but does not rename the reported Cabinet divisions.
The task force has a 120-day mandate; the announcement supplies no repo, API or price-per-token details for federal coordination. You can install the executive order, but Cabinet consensus does not come with a setup wizard.
