President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed calls for tighter AI oversight and said the industry already has enough protection.
'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 wrote on Truth Social, according to the sources.
He also said, 'We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.'
The comments came after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged a slowdown in frontier AI development. Amodei argued that AI companies should 'pace' development, and said the industry should move more slowly while still making progress.
Other AI leaders have backed that warning. Elon Musk wrote on X, 'Dario is right.' Sam Altman said he agreed 'with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.'
The Trump administration has also clashed with Anthropic before. In February, the Pentagon effectively blacklisted the company amid a contracting dispute. Anthropic later sued to block those actions and Trump's separate order that federal agencies stop using Anthropic. Last month, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the action was 'illegal and baseless.'
Trump and Vice President JD Vance have both pushed back on the idea of heavier regulation. Vance said frontier AI companies going to the government and 'begging the government to regulate them' felt 'like a bit of a Trojan horse.'
Why it matters: this is a fight over who controls a fast-growing industry — market competition, bureaucrats, or the White House. The answer will shape investment, data centers, and how much freedom AI firms keep to move fast.
The bottom line: Trump is betting that light-touch rules and presidential power beat new guardrails. Critics say the pace of AI is exactly why the rules matter.