President Donald Trump has created a federal AI task force led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, joining officials from the intelligence community, Federal Trade Commission, Pentagon and Office of Personnel Management in a new coordination body.
Trump announced the Super Intelligence Force in an October 4 social-media post. He said the group would coordinate federal efforts to maintain US leadership in the technology and protect Americans’ interests. Its external engagement will include consumers, public-interest groups, religious organizations, critical infrastructure providers and AI companies.
Alongside Clayton, Trump named FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Pentagon technology chief Emil Michael and OPM Director Scott Kupor to lead the group. Michael also serves as under secretary for research and engineering. The task force will report to Trump and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, according to the announcement.
ODNI’s official leadership page confirms that Clayton was sworn in as director of national intelligence on August 3. In that role he heads the intelligence community, advises the president on intelligence matters and directs the National Intelligence Program. His previous government positions include US attorney for the Southern District of New York and chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The new body follows the voluntary White House safety accord signed September 29 by Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI and Nvidia. Trump described that agreement as morally binding rather than legally enforceable and said the companies would police themselves.
The accord sets out internal controls for monitoring model capabilities and alignment during training and deployment. It calls for a separate internal review team, an independent external auditor or evaluator, and an independent board committee overseeing reports and remediation. The companies also agreed to meet regularly to develop safety standards and practices.
Ferguson’s participation comes as the FTC conducts a separate industry-wide AI safety investigation. A senior agency official described plans to obtain information and testimony from OpenAI, Anthropic and the research organization METR. The inquiry concerns potential dangers to consumers; it is not a finding that any named organization violated the law.
Twenty-six attorneys general have separately asked Congress for mandatory federal AI safety oversight, including government-selected evaluators and investigations with access to company records. New York Attorney General Letitia James led the September 23 letter, whose signatories represent 24 states, the District of Columbia and American Samoa. Their proposal seeks preservation of states’ ability to enforce their own laws, along with international cooperation on the pace of frontier-model development. The letter went to the Republican and Democratic leaders of both chambers of Congress.
Sources: Trump’s Truth (archive), ODNI, Associated Press
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By the Control Plane Editorial Team