The United States is caught in a growing paradox. Just as artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key focus of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy agenda, the administration’s efforts to create a leaner federal government have forced out hundreds of technology specialists, many of them uniquely skilled in AI policy, engineering, and design.
Among the most affected have been key innovation offices: The U.S. Digital Service and the General Service Administration’s 18F office have been effectively dismantled, while the Department of Homeland Security’s AI Corps, the U.S. Digital Corps, the Presidential Innovation Fellowship, and other programs have been significantly cut. This growing loss of talent undermines the very priorities that the Trump administration seeks to advance, including maintaining the United States’ lead in AI.
While the U.S. Congress is debating efforts to regulate AI, many technology company CEOs have requested the federal government to step in to protect society against the emergence of autonomous AI systems that could take action without human oversight, deceive users, or deliberately evade controls. But given the recent wave of layoffs, the federal agencies responsible for implementing policy, setting standards, and deploying AI solutions will be ill-equipped to act if and when the government does decide to move forward on AI policy and regulation.
This could result in risky loopholes that allow dangerous systems to evade regulation—or, conversely, it could bring about poorly designed laws that restrict beneficial research and stifle innovation.
There are also serious geopolitical implications to federal personnel decisions. U.S. allies and adversaries alike are ready to capitalize on the Trump administration’s decision to shed top-tier talent. In fact, they are already swooping in to poach them for their own national AI efforts.
In May, the European Commission announced a $568 million initiative with a strong focus on AI to lure foreign researchers and scientists to work in Europe. The initiative doesn’t specifically mention the United States, but it’s clear that it came in response to Washington’s funding cuts for science and research. In April, the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities said that it is allocating $158 million to woo international researchers, with a deal sweetener of $235,000 for each project involving Americans who wish to “abandon their country because of the economic and political situation.”
More recently, the Japanese government announced an investment of $700 million to lure foreign researchers, including Americans who have had their research budgets slashed. Even individual universities are getting into the act: Aix Marseille University in France launched Safe Place for Science, a $17 million program to hire 15 new researchers in AI and physics, specifically targeting scientists in the United States who feel “threatened or hindered in their research.”
Similarly, the government of the United Arab Emirates offered to hire the entire Defense Digital Service, an elite team of technologists in the U.S. Defense Department’s Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office that had resigned en masse after being sidelined by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on AI implementation. Some of these former employees told me that Abu Dhabi had offered to fly them to the UAE in order to tour the country and discuss working there. Representatives of the Gulf nation made it clear to them that when it came to salary, there was no price cap.
While the United Arab Emirates has been a reliable partner in the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords and other regional peace initiatives, Abu Dhabi remains a smuggling hub for advanced U.S. technology on its way to China and other blacklisted destinations. In the context of relaxing Biden administration controls on AI chip exports to the UAE, the White House has downplayed the risks of chip smuggling, signaling that upholding safeguards will not be a priority. In the past, the UAE has recruited former U.S. federal employees to spy on foreign governments and do surveillance of domestic critics. Washington and Abu Dhabi have neither military or intelligence-sharing agreements, nor similar values on human rights and privacy protections. Pushing the United States’ best and brightest out of the country and into the hands of nondemocratic states is a catastrophic waste of top-tier talent.
In this context, ensuring that the United States remains in the driver’s seat of developing and implementing the most consequential technology of our lifetime will require a whole-of-government shift in the approach to recruiting, deploying, and retaining AI-related personnel. Washington has to convince individuals to leave lucrative careers in the private sector to pursue public service. To do this, the Trump administration will need to leverage existing tools such as direct hire authority, alternative pay scales, and flexible working accommodations.
The White House will also need to deploy experts across a range of agencies to improve procurement and implementation of AI-related technologies. Without relevant in-house expertise to address these objectives, the government will be more likely to incur waste and fraud. The administration should look to the pre-DOGE U.S. Digital Service—where experts were detailed out from the White House to agencies that needed help solving specific technology problems—as a model for preparing Washington to embrace AI. That stands in stark contrast to the post-DOGE Digital Service, where staffers are deployed on vague “fraud-hunting” missions with little strategic direction.
Moreover, Washington needs to prepare for the future of the U.S. civil service workforce, both as an economic necessity and as a strategic imperative. Talented international students educated at U.S. universities who are passionate about supporting the country’s AI development and deployment should have a clear path to public service.
Congress should fulfill Trump’s promise to allow foreign students earning degrees in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics at a U.S. university to automatically receive green cards when they graduate. At the same time, Congress should expand programs such as the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service—which offers scholarship funding in exchange for joining the civil service—to include experts in AI, quantum computing, and other areas of strategic technological interest.
By stopping DOGE, deploying a new personnel strategy, and infusing the federal government with top-tier AI talent, Washington can ensure that it remains the global AI leader instead of relinquishing its position by wastefully exiling its best and brightest.
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