Trump calls AI fears a "HOAX" — and himself the only guardrail

Trump calls AI fears a "HOAX" — and himself the only guardrail

Two days after Amodei, Altman, Musk and Hassabis urged the industry to slow its pace, the president responds with six Truth Social posts: the risk warnings are a conspiracy, only China would be pleased, and the only control AI needs is "a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT." The industry's voluntary slowdown proposal now has no presidential buy-in.

What happened

On Monday, President Donald Trump used six posts on Truth Social to reject the weekend's joint call from the frontier labs to slow down AI development. He dismissed fears that AI could take over the world and destroy humanity as a "HOAX," on par with the political "hoaxes" he claims to have been subjected to, according to reporting (900ac61f).

"AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX, no different from RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA — UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE — IMPEACHMENT HOAX #1 — IMPEACHMENT HOAX #2," Trump wrote (900ac61f).

He resolved the question of control himself: "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!" he wrote (900ac61f).

What the CEOs actually proposed

On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging companies to slow the pace: "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain," he wrote. He also wrote that the measures needed to advance at a safe pace "will not be easy," but that "we owe it to humanity to try," and, according to the reporting, offered external evaluators — at staff level — access to the models (900ac61f).

OpenAI's Sam Altman agreed "that we need to pace the frontier" and said his company, too, would open up to external evaluators. Elon Musk, who runs xAI, wrote "Dario is right," and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis also signed on to the call (900ac61f). The sources do not give a complete picture of how unified the support actually was; the positions of Altman and Musk are documented only through the cited posts.

Trump's counterattack

The president blamed a group he called "Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers" for what he described as a "SICK conspiracy" against AI and data centers, and claimed China was the only one pleased: "WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so," he wrote (900ac61f).

He also attacked Amodei personally, as someone who "is now pretending to be a 'perfect little angel,'" and wrote that the administration already has "tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies" (900ac61f). Trump did not specify what he was referring to — neither regarding the alleged conspiracy nor the claims of power — and the White House did not immediately respond to Axios's comment request on Monday (fd1fa944).

The administration rejects regulation

David Sacks, who led AI and crypto policy for the administration until March and now chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, has accused Anthropic of "a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fearmongering." This week he said Anthropic and OpenAI are welcome to "go ahead and pace the frontier," but that they should stop asking Washington for an antitrust exemption or a formal approval regime to do so (900ac61f).

Vice President JD Vance on Monday called regulating the AI companies "a trojan horse," telling reporters he is uncertain about regulating them (47bbf03f). Trump also called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during a summit in Los Angeles to declare that "the robots will not be taking over" — Huang, himself an opponent of industry regulation, who was on stage at a conference, reportedly put the call on speaker to amplify Trump's dismissals (21c8c107).

The markets reacted

Chip stocks fell on Monday, with Intel down nearly 6 percent, Micron around 5 and Nvidia around 3, while Nasdaq futures fell more than 1 percent overnight. According to the reporting, investors priced in the possibility that the companies buying hardware will do so more slowly (900ac61f). The figures come from a single source and are not independently verified; the stocks may also have fallen for other reasons.

What it means

The industry's voluntary proposal for a slower pace thus has no presidential buy-in. At the same time, the story has rapidly dominated political debate in the United States: Trump had posted six times on the topic by Monday evening (21c8c107).

According to anonymous sources, some within the White House itself are worried by Trump's apparent indifference to AI dangers — a position he has held for months, unaffected by the industry's warnings (21c8c107). That concern rests on anonymous sourcing and cannot be independently verified.

Formal guardrails are therefore further away, not closer. What an actual slowdown would involve without the administration's support — and who, if anyone, would enforce it — remain open questions.