The word tsar/czar originally derives from Julius Caesar, just like the German “kaiser”.

But in US terms, it was popularized by FDR during WWII.

In 1942, The Washington Post reported on the “executive orders creating new czars to control various aspects of our wartime economy.”[11] Positions were created for a transportation czar, a manpower czar, a production czar, a shipping czar, and a synthetic rubber czar, all to solve difficult problems in coordinating the resources necessary to fight World War II wikipedia