The United States now has a ‘Super Intelligence Force.’ That’s the actual name. And yes, someone has been put in charge of it. As reported by Engadget, President Donald Trump has formally created the task force and tapped Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, to lead it. If that combination of words sounds more like a Marvel agency than a federal working group, that’s because the administration has been deliberately moving away from the phrase ‘artificial intelligence’ for weeks now. This is the institutional result of that shift.
Trump announced the task force via Truth Social, writing that the Super Intelligence Force is ‘tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence.’ The group will work with consumers, public interest groups, religious organizations, critical infrastructure providers, and what Trump called ‘super intelligence companies.’ That last phrase is doing a lot of work. It’s a clear signal that the administration views frontier AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind as strategic national assets, not just tech companies.
Beyond Clayton, the task force includes Andrew Ferguson, chair of the FTC; Emil Michael, the Defense Department’s under secretary for research and engineering and CTO; and Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management. The group reports directly to Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Their first assignment, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is a report on AI risks and opportunities due within 120 days.
The timing matters here. This announcement comes a few weeks after Trump floated the idea of an ‘AI Force’ and ran a poll on Truth Social asking followers whether ‘artificial intelligence’ should be rebranded. So the Super Intelligence Force isn’t a sudden move. It’s the end product of a deliberate, months-long repositioning of how this administration wants to talk about and govern AI.
What makes this worth watching is the tension it creates. Many tech CEOs, including some who have openly courted the Trump administration, have been calling for a slowdown in AI development to address safety risks. The Super Intelligence Force, by contrast, is structurally built around maintaining American dominance, not pumping the brakes. That puts the White House on a collision course with the cautious wing of the industry, even as it positions itself as the industry’s biggest champion. Whether this group produces anything substantive in 120 days, or quietly fades into the background, will tell us a lot about whether this is real policy or political theater with a dramatic name.
