MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Trump rejects calls to regulate AI and targets Anthropic's CEO

Trump said there is a conspiracy against AI and the data centers that support it, and that China is the only beneficiary

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday rejected calls from the technology industry to slow the development of artificial intelligence, asserting that his administration holds broad criminal and regulatory powers over those companies.

In posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump said there is a conspiracy against AI and the data centers that support it, and that China is the only beneficiary. He called fears that the technology will destroy humanity a hoax and compared them to earlier warnings about climate change. He also singled out Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive of Anthropic, accusing him of now posing as a “perfect little angel”.
NBC News

The remarks follow a sequence that accelerated over recent days. On September 8, researcher Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic with a post on X accusing the company and OpenAI, where he had also worked, of gambling with people's lives. Evan Hubinger, Anthropic's own Alignment Science lead, publicly backed his claims and put the probability of AI causing human extinction within the next decade above 10%.

On Saturday the 12th, Amodei published a roughly 3,900-word essay titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” calling for a reduction in the rate at which model capabilities improve. He was explicit that he is not proposing a halt to development, but rather allowing time for alignment work and verification to keep up. He set out three steps: external evaluators embedded within the labs, coordinated standards among democratic countries and, eventually, global coordination including China.

Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI endorsed the proposal within hours, as did Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind. Anthropic and OpenAI both have initial public offerings pending, a factor several outlets flagged as bearing on how the call should be read.

From within the administration, White House AI czar David Sacks had pushed back on Saturday, questioning the sector's motives: he argued the drive to slow down is not purely altruistic and reflects companies' exposure to product liability claims. He added that China is unlikely to join any global regulatory agreement.

In Congress, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday called for a briefing for the full chamber on AI risks and on the lack of action regarding Chinese development. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said he expects Trump to summon platform leaders to discuss corporate responsibility.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump's posts.