Donald Trump's new AI czar, Chris Fall, has resigned
What's the story
Chris Fall, the Director of the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), has resigned from his position. The agency confirmed his departure to multiple news outlets. Fall was appointed only three months ago, after his predecessor Collin Burns left within a week. Burns was reportedly "pushed out" in April due to his previous association with Anthropic, a company that had been at odds with the Donald Trump administration.
Background
Fall's background
Before heading CAISI, Fall was the Director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science during Trump's first term.
He had also served as the Acting Director of DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and worked in its Office of Naval Research.
CAISI, which is part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is responsible for setting technical standards for AI models and assessing cybersecurity risks.
Developments
Controversy surrounding AI models
In June, the US Commerce Department used an obscure export control measure to force Anthropic to withdraw its Mythos and Fable models from the market.
However, the ban was lifted by month-end after Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said he was satisfied with Anthropic's safety plans.
Earlier this month, the White House also issued an executive order for a new AI safety oversight program called "Gold Eagle."
Exclusion
Questions about CAISI's role
Despite the importance of its work, CAISI was not included in the federal organizations listed as part of the "Gold Eagle" program.
This has raised questions about its role in regulating frontier AI models.
The agency has published reports on Chinese open-weight models like Z.ai's GLM-5.2 and DeepSeek V4 Pro but hasn't revealed much about its testing processes for these models.