The United States Now Has an “AI Force.” It Has No Budget, No Structure, and No Czar — But It Does Have a Truth Social Post.

President Trump announced a new “AI Force,” modeled on the Space Force, plus a soon-to-be-named “AI czar.” The announcement arrived on a Saturday, via social media, with no details on budget, structure, or chain of command — which is also, coincidentally, most people’s understanding of AI itself.

The United States Capitol, home of an AI Force that currently exists mostly as a concept.

A Force With a Name and Nothing Else

On Saturday, September 19, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would create an “AI Force,” modeled on the Space Force he established in his first term, and would soon name an “AI czar” to lead it.

He called artificial intelligence “the next Industrial Revolution” and pledged: “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry.” He added that his administration would “cherish it, help it, and watch over it” — three verbs that, notably, do not include “regulate,” “oversee,” or “explain what this actually is.”

What the AI Force will do, who will serve in it, what its budget will be, and where it sits in the federal org chart were not mentioned. The Space Force, for comparison, took an act of Congress, a multi-year process, and roughly $40 billion a year. The AI Force, so far, has taken one weekend and about 200 words.

A data center, similar to the ones Trump says will make rejecting communities “backwards and poor.”

The Czar Position: Now Hiring (Previous Officeholder Quit)

Trump already tried this once. Venture capitalist David Sacks was named AI czar earlier in the administration, before resigning to chair the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology instead. Whoever takes the newly announced role will be, technically, the second person to hold a title that has existed for well under a year.

Trump also dismissed communities pushing back against new AI data centers in their areas, describing the facilities as “prestigious” and warning that towns that reject them would “end up being backwards and poor.” Whether this argument features anywhere in the eventual AI czar’s job description is unclear, though it would fit.

Meanwhile, the People Who Built the Thing Are Asking for Brakes

The announcement lands as the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind — the companies actually building the technology in question — have been publicly calling for slower development and stronger safety measures. One AI safety researcher has put the odds of the technology causing catastrophic harm within a decade above 10%. A recent poll found 63% of Americans see at least a moderate risk that AI could eventually destroy humanity.

Trump’s response to all of this was to call safety concerns a “hoax,” argue that the existing “Criminal and Civil Justice System” is guardrail enough, and add that all that is really needed is a “strong and smart” president. Whether that president currently has a phone number for the still-unnamed AI czar was not addressed.

So, for now, the AI Force is a name, a social media post, and one very open position. If the singularity does arrive, humanity can at least take comfort that the paperwork tracking it is, appropriately, still pending.