How big tech got its way on Trump’s AI executive order | AI (artificial intelligence)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/23/trump-ai-order-big-tech

Publish Date: 2026-05-23 10:01:00

Only hours before Donald Trump was set to sign a long-awaited executive order on Thursday that would have called for a government safety review of new artificial intelligence models before their release, the president abruptly backed out. Despite growing public backlash to the technology and experts warning new models will pose critical security risks, Trump vowed the US government would not slow down the AI race.

During a meeting with reporters on Thursday, Trump cited both American dominance and competition with China and as his reasoning behind the reversal.

“I didn’t like certain aspects of it, I postponed it,” Trump said of the executive order in the Oval Office. “We’re leading China, we’re leaving everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s gonna get in the way of that lead.”

Trump’s postponing of the order was a victory for tech leaders who have long opposed AI regulation and spent millions lobbying against it. The decision was also the direct result of their influence, according to reports from multiple news outlets, with tech billionaires including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and former White House “AI czar” David Sacks personally urging Trump to reverse course in private phone calls.

After a brief period in which the White House appeared concerned enough about potential security implications to consider restraints on frontier AI, Trump’s decision marks a return to his own earlier hands-off approach and signals a laissez-faire future. The tech industry retains its ability to pursue rapid advancement of AI regardless of the potential harms, and Silicon Valley’s leaders have successfully tested their power to kill any attempts at regulation in infancy.

Powerful cybersecurity AI forces White House to consider regulation

White House discussions around the order began after Anthropic last month announced its latest model, Claude Mythos, but declared that it would hold off on publicly releasing it due to safety concerns – calling…

Source