ИИ-царь Трампа снова ушёл в отставку: пост главы CAISI превратился во вращающуюся дверь

Donald Trump's administration is once again without an "AI czar": according to TechCrunch on July 20, 2026, the latest curator of US AI policy has resigned, and the post of director of the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) has turned into a "revolving door" since David Sacks's departure.

What is known about the resignation

Donald Trump's latest "AI czar" has left the post — TechCrunch reported this on July 20, 2026. The role in question is tied to leading CAISI — the Center for AI Standards and Innovation at the US Department of Commerce. Since David Sacks, the first "AI and crypto czar," left the administration, no single leader has managed to hold onto the post: appointees keep leaving one after another. The headline of the piece itself — "Trump's latest AI czar has already resigned" — underscores how fleeting the appointment has been.

• July 20, 2026 — TechCrunch reported the resignation of the latest US "AI czar"
• CAISI — the Center for AI Standards and Innovation at the US Department of Commerce
• David Sacks — Trump's first "AI czar," appointed in December 2024
• Since Sacks's departure, the CAISI director post has already changed hands several times

"The director's post at the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) has become a revolving door ever since David Sacks left the czar role,"

TechCrunch's report states.

What CAISI is

CAISI (Center for AI Standards and Innovation) is a unit of the US Department of Commerce housed within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), responsible for standards and testing of frontier AI models. The center emerged in June 2025, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick renamed the AI Safety Institute, which had been created under the Joe Biden administration in 2023. The rebranding reflected a shift in priorities: instead of "safety," the focus became "standards and innovation," centered on national security and competition with China.

CAISI inherited the practical work with labs: back in August 2024, the predecessor institute signed agreements with OpenAI and Anthropic to test models before public release, and in 2025 CAISI published an assessment of models from China's DeepSeek. A similar transformation took place in Britain: in February 2025, the local AI Safety Institute was renamed the AI Security Institute — the priority of "safety" giving way to national security on both sides of the Atlantic.

Why the revolving door is a problem

The constant turnover of curators deprives Washington of a consistent AI policy at a moment when the US is competing with China and rewriting the rules for the industry: back in July 2025, the White House unveiled its AI Action Plan strategy, whose implementation requires a stable team. David Sacks, a venture investor and co-founder of Craft Ventures, took the post of "AI and crypto czar" in December 2024, but combined it with his work at the fund: according to US media, he held the status of a "special government employee," which limits government service to roughly 130 days a year.

Every new resignation at CAISI delays practical decisions — from model-testing standards to approaches to export controls. For AI companies, this means uncertainty: it's unclear who to negotiate the rules with and how long those agreements will last.

What it means

The US's top AI standard-setter has no stable leadership, and that's a signal for the entire industry: clear rules of the game will take longer to arrive. As long as the "AI czar" post remains a revolving door, the agenda in American AI is effectively being set by the labs themselves — OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google — rather than by the regulator.