President Trump’s next AI czar will embark on a technological revolution unfolding at breakneck speed — and a power struggle in Washington over the role of government.
The president announced on September 19 that he would appoint a new AI advisor and create an “AI Force,” and the “high IQ” tech wizard would inherit an AI landscape that has changed dramatically since venture capitalist David Sacks became Trump’s first AI and crypto czar in late 2024.
He resigned in March after reaching the 130-day service limit as a special government employee.
The post comes as AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic call for greater government intervention and as lawmakers push for new rules governing the country’s border AI labs.
Among those reportedly vying for the job overseeing policy for the billion-dollar industry:
Sriram Krishnan
The White House’s senior policy advisor on AI has been named one of the “Architects of AI” in TIME magazine’s 2025 People of the Year rankings. He is a native of Chennai, India, and a venture capitalist who previously held executive positions at Microsoft, Meta, and XAI.
Krishnan was the architect of the administration’s AI Action Plan, which provided a blueprint for rolling back market regulation and promoting growth with the construction of data centers.
Trump has previously praised Krishnan, saying at a White House Christmas party: “Without him, things, certainly in AI, would not work well,” The Washington Post reported in June.
Krishnan took on a more formal role at the National Economic Council when Sacks left the czar post until his own departure in June, according to Axios.
Scott Bessent
The U.S. Treasury Secretary has been widely seen as the frontrunner and has repeatedly said that AI companies should take responsibility for what their models do.
He is becoming increasingly involved in AI policy, including talking this week with Chinese officials about a possible U.S.-China communication mechanism on AI incidents that threaten national security.
“The best way to ensure security is for creators to be responsible for what they build and generate,” Bessent said during testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.
Bessent told Fox News that the Reuters report claiming Trump had already asked him to fill the role was “fake news.”
Sean Cairncross
The national cyber director has played a major role in shaping the Trump administration’s AI policy since 2025.
He was appointed by Trump as CEO of the US foreign aid organization Millennium Challenge Corp. from 2019 to 2021 and was elected director of operations for the Republican National Committee in 2016.
Cairncross clashed with Bessent, believing the Treasury Department has gotten too involved in AI issues, according to a June 6 Axios report.
Administration insiders have expressed doubts that a former GOP operative is up to the task of regulating border AI labs — with one unnamed official previously telling Politico that Cairncross was “in over his head.”
Michael Kratsios
The director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has been a top technology adviser to Trump and has spoken out against slowing the development of cutting-edge AI.
“The intelligence frontier is advancing rapidly. This is no reason to suspend its development or to limit it to new structures of global governance,” Kratsios said in a speech to the United Nations on Wednesday.
“Only through an open, cooperative ecosystem built on sovereign infrastructure and national capabilities can the world realize the potential of this technology. The United States’ international efforts aim to strengthen this capacity by sharing our technology and providing the tools necessary for its adoption.”
He added: “You can’t govern a technology you don’t understand. This body and others like it should focus on sharing best practices to build national capabilities, not on establishing a global regulatory regime.”
Whoever gets the job will face pressure from both the AI industry and lawmakers, as Washington struggles to figure out how to regulate a technology that is advancing faster than the government can write rules about it.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, is a strong advocate for strict regulation of AI and is pushing, along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), for the “Artificial Intelligence Risk Assessment Act.”
The Show Me State senator said he wants any new AI czar to put American citizens first.
“Someone who has the best interests of ordinary citizens at heart,” Hawley told the Post.
“But Congress should also do something. We should pass a bill restricting data centers. We should pass legislation that would stop AI chatbots from spreading sexual material to children. We should pass legislation that would give ordinary people the right to sue these companies. We shouldn’t just sit back and watch.”
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