President Donald Trump said that he would be a sufficient guardrail against rogue artificial intelligence, claiming that any efforts to limit the technology is part of a “SICK conspiracy".
Trump was pushing back against calls by tech leaders such as Anthropic's Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk to have greater government oversight of AI. Many tech leaders generally say their goal is to develop the technology in ways that promote safety, address legal liability, feed economic growth, advance science and preserve national security.
The president maintained that his presence in the Oval Office should assuage any fears about AI, which has become a source of controversy after a series of hacks in recent months that showed AI agents could be working to deceive humans.
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Trump posted on social media.
Trump specifically said that the administration has already stopped the AI company Anthropic “from doing bad, or potentially bad” things. Anthropic has endured an uncomfortable relationship with the Trump administration, with the Pentagon trying to label the company a security risk and the government issuing a temporary ban of one of its more advanced models.
The president went even further in a post that asked “when, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?”
The president then added that the potential threat that AI could pose to humanity was a hoax, despite clear warnings by many of the experts closest to the most advanced models.
“AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX,” posted Trump.
Trump's refusal to regulate comes as AI execs warn of threats
Amodei, the Anthropic CEO, published a 3800-word essay that called for slower development of AI. Microsoft published its own code of conduct to ensure that humans control AI. The actions come after a series of warnings by AI experts about the technologies' capabilities and the July 2026 cyberattack by OpenAI models on the AI company Hugging Face.
Amodei cited “AI’s growing ability to build the next generation of AI” and the cyberattack by the swarm of OpenAI agents as reasons to slow the pace of development.
“Given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it’s my worry that in 6–12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet,” Amodei wrote, adding that the damages could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars or more “without the necessary guardrails".
Altman of OpenAI seconded that perspective in a weekend post on social media.
“Pacing will be well worth this cost; no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness, or let capabilities get ahead of alignment and monitoring,” Altman said. “Where we will need the help of our government is for international coordination.”
Trump does have some support from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has described the risks of AI as overblown. The president phoned the co-founder of the chipmaker on Monday during an interview Huang was having for a podcast. Huang put the president on speaker and they agreed that there was excessive alarmism about AI, according to social media posts and videos.
Trump sees AI regulation as helping China
The president has opposed such efforts to constrain AI and claims that doing so could cause China to eclipse America on AI.
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” Trump said.
The president has long resisted efforts for greater government oversight of AI, embracing his philosophy going back to 2016 of “I alone can fix it.” He returned to the White House last year by revoking a Biden administration executive order on AI oversight and only providing a fuller order of his own more than 16 months later this past June.
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