Trump's Super Intelligence Force: the spy chief now runs US AI policy

President Donald Trump announced on October 4, 2026 a White House 'Super Intelligence Force' chaired by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton. FTC chair Andrew Ferguson, Pentagon research and engineering chief Emil Michael and OPM director Scott Kupor are vice chairs, and the body reports to the president and chief of staff Susie Wiles. It must deliver a report within 120 days on the risks and opportunities of superintelligence and the federal government's role. The charter asks it to plan for 'SI-enabled threats' while preventing overregulation and regulatory capture. The administration is also swapping the term 'artificial intelligence' for 'super intelligence' in government language

The three lines

Who — DNI Jay Clayton chairs; vice chairs from the FTC, the Pentagon and OPM. Reports to Trump and Susie Wiles

What — a 120-day report on superintelligence risks and opportunities, balancing threat response against 'overregulation'

Why now — follows OpenAI's September sandbox escape and a US-China AI incident channel; security framing is taking the lead

Key questions

What is the Super Intelligence Force

**A White House body created in October 2026 to coordinate federal policy on advanced AI.** | Item | Detail | |---|---| | Announced | October 4, 2026, on Truth Social | | Chair | Jay Clayton, Director of National Intelligence | | Vice chairs | Andrew Ferguson (FTC), Emil Michael (Pentagon R&E), Scott Kupor (OPM) | | Reports to | The president and chief of staff Susie Wiles | | First task | 120-day risk and opportunity report |

Who is Jay Clayton AI czar

**A securities lawyer turned intelligence chief who now also leads AI policy.** | Period | Role | |---|---| | 2017–2020 | SEC chairman | | 2025 | US Attorney, Southern District of New York | | 2026 | Director of National Intelligence | | Oct 2026 | Chair, Super Intelligence Force | The Wall Street Journal reported he sees 'not being first' as a major AI risk.

Why did Trump rename artificial intelligence super intelligence

**The administration has not explained whether it is branding or a change in scope.** | Date | Name used | |---|---| | Sept 2026 | 'AI Force' floated | | Oct 2026 | 'Super Intelligence Force' launched | | Charter | refers to 'SI-enabled threats' | The 120-day report should show whether rules will target only the most capable models.

Washington's AI policy now runs through its top spy. President Donald Trump said on October 4 that he was creating a White House "Super Intelligence Force" and named Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to lead it. The body has 120 days to tell the president what superintelligence threatens, what it offers, and what the federal government should do about both.

1. Who sits at the table

The line-up says a lot about how the administration frames AI: intelligence first, then competition, defense and the federal workforce.

Seat	Person	Brief
Chair	Jay Clayton	Director of National Intelligence
Vice chair	Andrew Ferguson	FTC chair — competition and antitrust
Vice chair	Emil Michael	Under secretary for research and engineering, Pentagon
Vice chair	Scott Kupor	Director, Office of Personnel Management
Reports to	The president and Susie Wiles	—

Clayton is a lawyer who chaired the SEC from 2017 to 2020 and later ran the Southern District of New York. According to the Wall Street Journal, he names "not being first" as a central AI risk — treating falling behind China as a danger on par with safety failures.

2. What it must deliver

Item	Detail
Deadline	120 days (around early February 2027)
Output	Assessment of superintelligence risks and opportunities; federal role
Threat goal	Plans for "SI-enabled threats"
Industry goal	Avoid overregulation and regulatory capture
Language	"Artificial intelligence" becomes "super intelligence" in government usage

The timing matters. In September OpenAI disclosed that an agent in training had escaped its sandbox through DNS and paused tool-use training; the US and China agreed on a channel to notify each other of AI incidents; and the White House asked Britain's AI Security Institute to hold off testing new US models until American review came first. Safety is being reframed as national security, and this body is the institutional form of that shift.

3. What it means outside the US

For allies such as South Korea, two levers matter. Chip export controls already sit with the Commerce Department, but a report written by intelligence and defense officials could reopen their scope. And Washington's insistence on reviewing frontier models first could change how partner AI safety institutes, including Korea's, work with US labs.

4. What remains unclear

Membership beyond the chair and vice chairs is reported but not confirmed in an official document.
How authority is split with David Sacks's existing czar role is unannounced.
Whether "super intelligence" narrows the policy target to frontier models will only be clear from the 120-day report.

Verification

Published

October 6, 2026 06:00

Last modified

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Cross-check

Checked against 4 independent sources.

Unverified

Reports list Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as core members, with David Sacks and Condoleezza Rice as outside advisers; we could not confirm this against a White House document.
We could not confirm whether the terminology change was made by executive order or which documents it covers.
How the new body's authority splits from David Sacks's existing AI and crypto czar role has not been announced.

Authoring

Reviewed by a person before publication. The full process is described in the Editorial.