Bessent won’t be the ‘super intelligence’ czar, Trump says
Por Brendan Bordelon — POLITICO – TOP Stories
President Donald Trump said Friday that he will not pick Scott Bessent to serve as his new czar for artificial intelligence — pouring cold water on a rumor that the Treasury secretary was poised to serve as the administration’s chief AI official.
“Scott Bessent will not be going to be Super Intelligence (SI) Czar,” Trump wrote in a Friday Truth Social post, where he used his preferred new name for the technology. “Number One, he doesn’t want to. Number Two, he’s doing such a great job at Treasury, and that’s where I want to keep him! Why would I ever make such a change?”
In a lengthy Truth Social post last weekend, Trump announced plans to launch an “AI Force” and said he would appoint a new AI czar to lead it (the role of AI czar had previously been filled by tech investor David Sacks, who stepped down early this year). But the president offered few immediate details about his plans, leaving the tech industry and congressional lawmakers uncertain about what such a proposal would entail.
Four tech industry representatives told POLITICO earlier this week that Bessent’s name kept cropping up as a serious contender for the position. That chatter prompted Trump on Friday to brand the rumors as “Just more Fake News!”
Spokespeople for the White House and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bessent is likely to remain an important player in the Trump administration’s approach to AI policy. The Treasury secretary played a key role in this summer’s negotiations between the White House and top AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI over the cybersecurity risks of their new AI models, which included the imposition of export controls on Anthropic’s models. And on Sunday, he proposed a new AI safety “notification mechanism” that would put him in charge of communicating with China on emerging threats.
An administration official who has worked on AI policy described Bessent as one of the few high-level Trump administration officials with a strong technical grasp of AI.
Megan Messerly, Cheyenne Haslett, Dana Nickle and John Hewitt Jones contributed to this report.
Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories
