Trump's AI Czar Resigns Again: CAISI Director Post Becomes a Revolving Door

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

What we know about the resignation

Another of Donald Trump's "AI czars" has left the job, TechCrunch reported on July 20, 2026. The role in question involves 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 official has managed to hold the post: appointees leave one after another. The title of the TechCrunch piece, "Trump's latest AI czar has already resigned," underscores how short-lived the appointment was.

• 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 left, the CAISI chief post has already changed hands several times

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

TechCrunch writes.

What is CAISI?

CAISI (the 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). It is responsible for standards and testing of frontier AI models. The center appeared in June 2025, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick renamed the AI Safety Institute, which had been created under Joe Biden in 2023. The new name reflected new priorities: "standards and innovation" instead of "safety," with a focus on national security and competition with China.

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

Why the staffing churn is a problem

Constant turnover among overseers leaves Washington without a consistent AI policy at a moment when the US is competing with China and rewriting the rules for the industry. In July 2025, the White House unveiled its AI Action Plan, and carrying it out requires a stable team. David Sacks, a venture investor and co-founder of the fund Craft Ventures, received the "AI and crypto czar" post 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.

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

What this means

America's main AI standards body has no stable leadership, and that is a signal to 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), not by the regulator.