Who Shapes Trump's AI Policy: Wired on the 'Brain Trust' and a Fight Between Ten Sides

Wired has published "This Is Donald Trump's AI Brain Trust," an investigation into who actually shapes US artificial intelligence policy under the Donald Trump administration. The report's main conclusion: there is no single decision-making center, and the internal debate over direction is not between two camps but among at least ten competing positions. The piece is built around a remark from one official, who describes how the administration's internal approval process works.

Not two sides, but ten

The US AI policy debate is more complicated than the public picture of "government versus industry," a source inside the administration told Wired. The official stressed that the disagreements cannot be reduced to a simple opposition between supporters and opponents of regulation.

"This is not a two-sided fight, it's a ten-sided fight," a senior administration official told

Wired.

The line describes the mechanics of decision-making itself. The White House's AI agenda has no single "owner": the final course emerges from pressure by many groups at once, including advisers, federal agencies, industry representatives and advocates of stricter oversight. Each "side" pulls policy toward its own set of priorities, and none controls the process as a whole.

Who is in the "brain trust"?

According to Wired, the AI "brain trust" is not one appointed adviser but a loose circle of figures inside the White House, federal agencies and the tech community close to the administration. Their views and bureaucratic weight, taken together, set the direction of American AI policy.

This diffuseness makes decisions hard to predict for outside observers: companies, allies and US competitors. The issues at stake carry billions of dollars and years of technological leadership: export controls on advanced chips, rules for powerful models, and the balance between the race for primacy and safety requirements. Wired shows that behind the public statements lies a non-public struggle among these "ten sides."

Why it matters beyond the US

US AI policy has effects far beyond America, from other countries' access to computing power to global regulatory standards. When the course is set not by a single doctrine but by bargaining among many players, the risk of inconsistent or abruptly shifting decisions rises: one "side" prevails today, another tomorrow.

The internal dispute unfolds against the backdrop of two publicly stated but poorly compatible US goals: to keep the lead in developing frontier AI while restricting competitors' access, above all China's, to the most powerful chips and models. The different "sides" place the emphasis differently. Some bet on deregulation and speed, while others insist on control and national security.

For business, this creates a practical planning problem: investments in compute, export contracts and product strategies have to be built on the assumption that the rules may shift along with the balance of power inside the White House. That is why the Wired report is valuable not for any individual names but for its lens: to understand the American AI agenda, you have to look not at one "AI chief" but at the whole arrangement of competing forces.

What this means

AI regulation in the US is not a single strategy but the product of bureaucratic bargaining. For industry and foreign observers, that means uncertainty: rules emerge where a dozen interests intersect, and they are easier to anticipate if you keep the whole map of influence in mind rather than watching one public figure. Put simply, American AI regulation currently has no single author.