Were did the title 'czar' come from in current media?

Ai czar, border czar, health czar…

I see it mentioned all the time in the US media but also elsewhere recently, where does this come from?

Czar is historicly the title of Russian rulers. Which these people clearly aren’t, so why the use of this term?

Is it some sort of right wing dogwistle?

There’s a detailed wiki article about it here.

TLDR: it’s specific to the US and UK, has been in use for over a century, and is largely metaphorical.