Multiple outlets reported this week, citing people briefed on the matter, that President Trump is preparing to name Jay Clayton -- his current Director of National Intelligence -- as the administration's next AI czar, with NBC News reporting the announcement could come as early as Friday. No outlet has named an on-record source confirming the pick, and the White House has not confirmed it either.
The reported pick, if confirmed
- Current role
- Director of National Intelligence
- Prior role
- SEC Chair, Trump's first term
- Also
- Former partner, Sullivan & Cromwell; former US Attorney for Manhattan
- Predecessor in the AI czar role
- David Sacks, who left in March on reaching his term limit as a special government employee
Clayton's background is unusual for the role in one specific way: he would reportedly keep running the intelligence community -- which includes the CIA and NSA -- while simultaneously directing the administration's AI policy. Dual-hatting a sitting DNI with a technology-policy portfolio has no real precedent in either job's recent history, and none of the reporting so far addresses what that overlap means for recusal or oversight.
The report follows a Tuesday meeting at the White House where leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, and SpaceX AI gathered to discuss a groundswell of AI-safety concerns. Trump told reporters afterward that he would name an AI czar "within three or four days." A White House official's on-record response to the Clayton reporting was narrow: "Any personnel announcement will be announced directly by the President. Any reporting until then is baseless speculation."
The role has sat effectively vacant since March, when David Sacks left the formal AI-and-crypto-czar post after reaching the time limit for a special government employee; he has continued as co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Clayton's regulatory record -- an SEC chairmanship generally read as deregulatory, paired with his current post overseeing national-security intelligence -- would be the clearest signal yet of how this administration intends to frame AI policy going forward: as a security competition with China more than a safety-first regulatory project.
- Multiple outlets reported Jay Clayton is Trump's pick for AI czar, citing unnamed sources.
- Clayton has been Director of National Intelligence since a party-line Senate vote in July.
- The role has sat vacant since David Sacks left it in March after his term limit.
- Reports say Clayton could hold both the DNI and AI czar titles at once.
- Caveat: the White House has not confirmed the pick; officials call the reports speculation.