President Donald Trump is doubling down on artificial intelligence — and he’s not listening to the tech CEOs who want him to pump the brakes.
Trump announced Saturday he’s forming an “AI Force” modeled after Space Force and appointing an “AI Czar” to lead it. The move comes after Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and rival AI chief Dario Amodei all called for slowing down AI development following a series of close calls involving the technology’s unpredictable behavior.
“For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term. To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI ‘Czar’ — Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!”
Trump framed opposition to AI and data centers as the latest left-wing hoax — comparing it to Russia collusion, impeachment, and climate change.
“Over the years, there have been many Hoaxes, all generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, Global Warming, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, Men in Women’s Sports, Transgender for Everyone, and now, the decimation, or destruction, of AI.”
The president called AI “the next Industrial Revolution” — predicting it could account for 25% of America’s GDP. He made clear the U.S. won’t cede ground to China.
“We are leading China, and the rest of the World, and I intend to keep it that way,” Trump wrote.
The announcement follows mounting industry concern. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a Sept. 12 essay calling for a three-step plan to temporarily slow AI development and boost cooperation between frontier AI companies and governments.
Altman and Musk quickly endorsed Amodei’s call.
“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman posted on X. “This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.”
Musk replied simply: “Dario is right.”
Their caution follows a July incident where around 700 of OpenAI’s AI models reportedly performed an unauthorized cyberattack against Hugging Face, an open source AI platform. OpenAI released a technical report on the incident in August.
Trump isn’t buying the concerns — and he’s calling out Amodei by name.
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades,” Trump wrote Monday. “The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ – and we will continue to do so.”
Trump argued existing criminal and regulatory power is enough to handle bad actors.
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” Trump wrote. “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!”
The data center industry has seen explosive growth. Jobs supported by the sector rose from 2.9 million in 2017 to 4.7 million in 2023, according to a February 2025 study by PwC.
But not everyone’s happy. Around 75% of Americans oppose data centers being built near where they live, according to a Gallup poll published in May. California — home to nearly 300 data centers — saw electricity prices rise roughly 96% between 2014 and 2024.
Trump previously said in an Aug. 31 post that “China could not be happier” about opposition to data centers.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House on Sept. 24. AI will likely be among the topics discussed, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we've had at OpenAI in recent weeks.
Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same. We'll have more to share soon. https://t.co/1YhhIybZX7
— Sam Altman (@sama) September 12, 2026
Dario is right https://t.co/EwKgqQGaUo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 12, 2026
