Trump vows to create an 'AI Force' and nods to justice system after rejecting calls to slow down industry. 'Rather, we will cherish it'

President Donald Trump said Saturday he plans to create an “AI Force,” framing it as a possible law-enforcement response to a technology that is racing ahead and rattling more people by the week. He also said he wants an AI czar and dismissed recent pressure to slow development as politically motivated “hoaxes.”

Trump’s message was blunt: the government should not get in the way. “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” he wrote on Truth Social, adding that the U.S. should “cherish it, help it, and watch over it.” But he also drew a line around misconduct, saying the existing criminal and civil justice system can deal with bad behavior.

The new “AI Force” echoes his Space Force pitch from his first term, and he cast the idea in familiar patriotic terms. He said AI could eventually account for as much as 25% of U.S. GDP and argued it could matter more than the internet. He also said the U.S. is ahead of China and wants to keep it that way.

The timing is awkward, because parts of the same administration have already tried to rein in AI companies. The Commerce Department temporarily restricted Anthropic’s most advanced models, and the Defense Department tried to blacklist Anthropic as a supply-chain risk before a judge ruled the move illegal. Trump’s cheerleading for the industry lands right after a week in which top AI leaders publicly agreed to slow their own pace.

That included Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s push for permanent independent evaluators inside the company, and comments from OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis in support of a slower approach. Meanwhile, a new lawsuit in California claims those slowdown talks may themselves violate antitrust law. So the industry is now getting squeezed from both sides: fear of what AI might do, and suspicion of what the companies are doing about it.