From XRP Nemesis to AI Overlord: Clayton's Crypto Past Gets a Plot Twist 🤖

President Donald Trump announced on Sunday the creation of a "Super Intelligence Force," a new federal task force designed to coordinate Washington's approach to artificial intelligence, with Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton listed first among its leaders. The move follows Friday reports from CNN and CBS News that Clayton was the frontrunner for the AI czar role, which Cointelegraph first reported on Sept. 20 was being modeled after the Space Force. Trump detailed the initiative in a post on Truth Social, writing that the Super Intelligence Force is "tasked with coordinating the effort of the Federal Government to ensure that America continues to lead the World in Super Intelligence."

Joining Clayton on the task force are Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor. The group will report to Trump and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. The announcement came after a White House meeting last week in which major AI and technology leaders signed what Trump called the "Historic White House Accord on Super Intelligence," committing their companies to "self-police" AI development.

Clayton is a familiar and controversial name in crypto. As Securities and Exchange Commission chair during Trump's first term, Clayton brought 57 enforcement actions against crypto firms, ICOs and blockchain projects, a tally he highlighted on his way out of the agency. In December 2020, in one of his final acts as chair, Clayton's SEC sued Ripple for $1.3 billion, alleging the company sold XRP as an unregistered security, a case that became a template for later SEC lawsuits against token issuers and exchanges.

After leaving the SEC, Clayton joined One River Asset Management as a crypto adviser in 2021 and sat on the advisory board of crypto custodian Fireblocks. Trump first tried to install Clayton as US attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2020 while he still led the SEC, and in 2025 appointed him interim US attorney for the same office, where he pushed ahead with the prosecution of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm. The Senate confirmed Clayton in July to lead the intelligence community, and sources told CNN he is expected to remain in that role alongside the new AI position.

The appointment comes amid ongoing industry debate over AI safety. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote a three-step proposal in September urging a slower pace of AI development, warning that the technology might otherwise "outrun our ability to understand and control these systems." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded positively to the proposal, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pushed back, arguing such regulation was not necessary. Anthropic subsequently selected Accenture as an embedded evaluator to help moderate the pace of AI development, advancing the first step of Amodei's plan. Trump's post did not specify a mandate or timeline for the Super Intelligence Force.