On September 14, 2026, Trump rejected calls for new safety rules on artificial intelligence in a Truth Social post, writing, “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!” The post came two days after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay arguing that AI companies should “slow the pace” at which they improve their models' capabilities. OpenAI's Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis publicly backed the idea.
In the same post, Trump named Amodei: “The Trump Administration has stopped AI 'people' from doing bad, or potentially bad, 'things,' like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a 'perfect little angel' - and we will continue to do so!” He added, “We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” and “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.” He ended, “Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!” NBC News wrote that Trump “appeared to hint at the government pursuing criminal or regulatory penalties against AI companies.”
Trump did not say what he meant by having “stopped” Anthropic, and the White House did not respond to Axios. His administration had designated the company a “supply chain risk” earlier in the year, and on August 27 a federal judge ruled that the designation violated the law and ordered it removed (see Judge Rules Hegseth Illegally Blacklisted an AI Company to Punish It for Criticizing the Government).
Later that day, Trump posted that fears of “AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX,” which Axios noted put the concern on par with Russian election interference claims and his own impeachments.
The administration's side: White House AI adviser David Sacks argued the leading companies could slow down without any government involvement. “The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it,” he wrote, and, “Stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic.” Vice President JD Vance said AI companies asking to be regulated “feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.” House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that rushed legislation would mean “we will lose the race to China.” An NBC News Decision Desk poll found that 70% of adults are more worried than excited about AI.
Update (September 21, 2026): five days later Trump turned the position into an announcement. In a Truth Social post on September 19 he added “the decimation, or destruction, of AI” to a list of what he calls Democratic hoaxes, then wrote, “For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force,” and, “I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI 'Czar' - Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” He promised, “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry,” and said bad actors could be handled “very easily, with our already existing Criminal and Civil Justice System.” He claimed AI could be “possibly as much as 25% of our Country's GDP” without citing a source.
There is nothing behind the name yet: no executive order, no structure and no nominee, and the White House gave CNN, NBC News and Newsweek no details. Whether the “AI Force” is a military branch, a task force or an agency is not established, and some coverage that framed it as a turn toward oversight is not supported by the text, which says existing law is enough. In a separate post the same day he polled his followers on renaming AI, calling the term “inaccurate, and very ineloquent.”
The day before, at Colgate University, Barack Obama had said, “Government has to be regulating this,” and that the country has “an administration that is not capable of or willing to - I would argue both - putting together a serious regulatory framework.” For the money the president's family has in the industry he declines to regulate, see Trump and His Sons Hold Stakes Across the AI Boom While He Refuses to Regulate It, a Washington Post Analysis Finds.
Update (September 22, 2026): he said it again to the United Nations General Assembly, in policy terms. “But we will only encourage superintelligence. We're going to encourage it, not rein it in. We're going to watch it closely through the Department of Justice,” he said, adding, “I'm not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution.” He placed those warning about AI in the same group as climate scientists and the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.” PolitiFact noted in response that “the loudest warnings of late have come from the top of the industry itself,” citing Anthropic's Dario Amodei and agreement from Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk; that on his claim of leading China “by a lot,” experts say China is “only a few months behind”; and that “superintelligence” is “not an accurate description of currently available AI systems” (see At the UN, Trump Asks Whether to 'Annihilate the Islamic Republic' and 'Drive Them Into Hell,' and Iran's Delegation Walks Out).
Update (September 29, 2026): Trump hosted technology executives, among them Anthropic's Dario Amodei, at a White House lunch and afterward said the industry should police itself. “There's a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation, and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that,” he said, and, “But the self-regulation is very important.” He also said he would sign a document that afternoon “renaming artificial intelligence because it's not artificial,” to be called superintelligence; the State Department had already told diplomats in one bureau to use the term, CNN reported citing the AP. The same day he launched America.gov, an AI government site (see Trump's New AI Government Website Said Biden Won in 2020, Then Stopped Answering 'Political Questions' While He Was Still Speaking). The tracker's research tools are built by Anthropic; this update reports only what outlets published.
Related entries: Trump Signs an Order Renaming AI 'Super Intelligence,' Then Posts an AI Pledge Signed 'President of the Unites States'.
Update (October 5, 2026): On October 4 Trump named the “AI Force” he had promised. “I am announcing the formation of the Super Intelligence Force (SIF),” he posted, to be led by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Under Secretary of War Emil Michael and OPM Director Scott Kupor, and to “report to the President of the United States (ME!), and the Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles.” Clayton keeps his post as DNI, which oversees an $80 billion-plus intelligence apparatus, Politico reported. The task force will reportedly have 120 days to report on the risks and opportunities of AI, TechCrunch reported, citing the Wall Street Journal. Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, cautiously welcomed Clayton while saying “the administration has resisted meaningful safeguards without offering a serious alternative for addressing the national security risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems.” The tracker's research tools are built by Anthropic, whose chief executive attended the September 29 White House meeting; this update reports only what outlets published.