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President Donald Trump ruled out Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as his next “Super Intelligence” czar on Friday, September 25, ending speculation around one of his administration’s main officials working on AI.
Trump wrote on Truth Social (NASDAQ: DJT) that Scott does not want the job and will stay at Treasury.
“Number One, he doesn’t want to. Number Two, he’s doing such a great job at Treasury, and that’s where I want to keep him! Why would I ever make such a change? Just more Fake News!”
The denial came one day after Semafor reported that Scott was becoming a leading candidate for the new AI post, citing three unnamed sources briefed on the talks. The outlet said his Cabinet seat would not have stopped him from taking another White House title.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum already holds the “energy czar” label while serving in the Cabinet. Semafor said Trump had not made a final choice at that point and noted that he can end up selecting less obvious candidates. White House spokesman Kush Desai had already pushed back, saying:
“Any reporting about personnel decisions that have not been officially announced by the administration should be regarded as baseless speculation.”
Trump keeps Bessent at Treasury as Washington opens an AI channel with Beijing
Scott has still become deeply involved in the administration’s AI work. During the UN General Assembly this week, he met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng before Trump’s planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Scott and He discussed a possible US-China notification system for serious AI incidents that could threaten national security. The proposal would form part of a broader official dialogue between Washington and Beijing on artificial intelligence.
Scott told CNBC, part of Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), that Trump’s planned AI czar would help give structure to the major questions surrounding the technology. He also said humans remain responsible for what AI systems do.
China came up directly in that discussion. According to Scott, he enquired from He on reporting AI cases. In his view, China has had such cases but it will not report anything for the reason that China is opaque. Chinese models were described as powerful by Scott even though he described the United States as more advanced than China.
Scott was asked what he viewed as the biggest danger; AI agents, governments and non-state actors, or that another US-China meeting was expected in roughly two months?
“I think it’s all of the above,” Scott replied. He said the larger risk was a lack of resilience.
Bessent pushes Treasury deeper into AI defense as banks warn about cyber risks
Scott explained that:
“On one side, that we’re seeing, and these frontier labs are national champions. They’ve done an incredible job. You know, when you think about Anthropic, the, it was a bunch of folks sitting in a park during COVID. And this is an only in America story.”
Scott said Anthropic began with people meeting in a San Francisco park during the COVID period, around 2021, while socially distancing. He said he has since seen possible Anthropic valuations between $1 trillion and $2 trillion.
His Treasury work moved further into AI earlier this year after financial institutions warned that advanced systems could create new weaknesses inside their networks. Scott said part of his job is now focused on strengthening the financial system against those risks.
He said systemically important banks face constant cyberattacks, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, thousands or millions in a single day. In Scott’s view, those institutions have some of the strongest cybersecurity outside the federal government because they are attacked so often.
The Treasury is also seeking ways to get the expertise from the big banks to lower levels in the banking system. According to Scott, this would mean the sharing of defensive measures and experience with other banks.
Gold Eagle is one of the projects mentioned in this context, described by Scott as an AI workshop and forum. According to him, Treasury is utilizing this to help them with resilience and disseminating lessons learned from the major banks into the wider financial system. What he is currently concentrating on, according to him, is the defensive aspect of AI.
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