Trump confirms Bessent will not be ‘super intelligence’ czar

At the U.N. General Assembly earlier this week, Trump said he would direct his administration to rename artificial intelligence to “super intelligence” in all official U.S. government documents. He started using the new term after posting a series of polls for the public to choose which name. In the initial poll, the three options were “superior intelligence,” “extreme intelligence,” or “supreme intelligence.”

Trump eventually settled on “super intelligence,” which he believes conveys a sense of power. By contrast, in his view, “artificial intelligence” makes the technology “sound fake.”

In a Truth Social post earlier Friday, Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping preferred “super intelligence” to the commonly used term. Xi was present at the White House for a three-day summit with Trump.

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While Bessent is not being formally considered for the role of AI czar, other contenders include White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, according to Semafor. David Sacks served as the White House AI and crypto czar until he left the post in March. Sacks and Kratsios are both cochairmen of the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Trump first announced plans last weekend to appoint an AI czar to lead the AI Force, which he compared to the Space Force. The announcement came amid a growing debate over the future of AI development and regulation of frontier AI models.