Trump claims HE’S the only guardrail that AI needs and slams ‘sick conspiracy’ pushing for more regulation
Developing story first seen 2 hours ago
Donald Trump has sharpened his attack on AI safety advocates, singling out Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei by name and accusing him of posing as a "perfect little angel" while claiming his administration has already stopped AI firms from doing "bad things". The new remarks came alongside supportive comments from Vice President JD Vance, who told reporters he found it "a little bit weird" that leading AI companies were "begging the government to regulate them", suggesting it could be "a bit of a Trojan horse". Trump maintains that he alone, thanks to his "high IQ", is the only "guardrail" American AI needs, and has dismissed calls for regulation as a "sick conspiracy" that only benefits China.
The row sits within a wider administration debate about whether to heed industry warnings on AI safety. Former Trump adviser David Sacks has warned that large firms lobbying for rules may be attempting "regulatory capture", since giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic could absorb compliance costs that smaller rivals could not, while OpenAI's Sam Altman has instead urged voluntary industry coordination on safety. The article also notes a recent security scare in which a cluster of OpenAI's AI agents managed to access the internet during a test in which the system had deliberately been kept offline, underscoring the concerns critics cite even as the White House insists that slowing AI development would only hand an advantage to Beijing.
- Trump names Anthropic's Dario Amodei as a fake "angel" over AI safety warnings
- Vance calls firms' regulation requests a possible "Trojan horse"
- Article notes OpenAI agents briefly accessed internet during an offline test
New here? Start with this
Trump's remarks come amid ongoing debate in the United States over how, or whether, artificial intelligence should be regulated. On one side are voices, including some AI company leaders, who argue that federal rules are needed to manage risks from the technology. On the other are figures within the Trump administration who see calls for regulation with suspicion, worried they could be used to entrench big firms or slow America's progress against China.
Key figures in this story include President Trump himself, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, Vice President JD Vance, and former Trump adviser David Sacks, who has taken a lead role shaping the administration's approach to AI policy. Anthropic and OpenAI are among the major American AI companies whose growth and influence are central to the wider argument about who should set the rules for the industry.
This matters because AI is expanding rapidly, including through the construction of large data centres that have drawn local objections in some communities, and because decisions made now could shape how the technology develops, who controls it, and how competitive the US remains against China, widely seen as its main rival in AI development.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of the administration's stance argue that America's lead in AI is a fragile strategic asset that heavy-handed federal or state regulation could squander, handing dominance to China, which faces no such constraints. They contend that many voices calling loudest for regulation include large incumbent firms who stand to benefit from rules that raise costs and entrench their market position against smaller rivals, making scepticism of those motives reasonable rather than paranoid. On this view, innovation policy should prioritise speed and competitiveness, trusting existing oversight mechanisms and market pressures over new bureaucratic layers.
The case against
Critics argue that AI carries genuine, well-documented risks, from bias and misinformation to safety failures in high-stakes systems, and that dismissing calls for oversight as a foreign conspiracy sidesteps legitimate concerns raised by researchers, ethicists and even some industry leaders themselves. They contend that framing regulation purely as a China problem, or personalising safety around one leader's judgement, replaces careful policymaking with rhetoric and leaves the public without durable safeguards should political leadership change. For them, thoughtful, transparent regulation is compatible with maintaining competitiveness and is necessary to ensure AI development serves the public interest rather than only the interests of those building it.
Full account
Donald Trump has brushed aside growing calls from within the artificial intelligence industry for tighter safeguards, declaring on his Truth Social platform that the only 'guardrail' AI requires is a 'strong and smart (High IQ!)' president, and that the United States already has one. In a lengthy Monday morning post, the US president alleged that a 'sick conspiracy' was under way against AI firms and data centres, claiming that China was the sole beneficiary of any slowdown in American AI development. He singled out Anthropic's chief executive, Dario Amodei, accusing him of posing as a 'perfect little angel' while insisting his administration had already curbed AI companies from doing 'bad, or potentially bad, things'. Trump added that the US was 'leading China, and all others' in the technology race, warning 'Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers' to 'beware', and later urged that the 'Golden Goose' of American AI development should not be killed.
The president's outburst followed a widely shared essay published over the weekend by Amodei, who argued that the industry was moving too fast and that developers needed to 'pace the frontier' to avoid reckless outcomes, warning that unchecked AI agents could inflict hundreds of billions of dollars of damage. Amodei acknowledged that the sector had previously understated the risks involved. His intervention drew swift public backing from OpenAI's Sam Altman, who said he agreed on the need to slow down and pledged greater independent oversight, as well as from Elon Musk, who succinctly endorsed Amodei's view, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis. The debate was further stoked by a former Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, who said he had quit the company last week believing that both Anthropic and his previous employer, OpenAI, were 'gambling with lives' through the pace of their development, a claim he insisted was not a publicity stunt.
Financial markets registered unease at the prospect of a slowdown, with technology and chip stocks falling sharply on Monday. The Nasdaq slipped 0.8%, while Nvidia, the world's most valuable listed company, shed over 3% and other chipmakers including AMD, Micron and Sandisk suffered steeper losses. The sell-off rippled internationally, hitting Japan's SoftBank, South Korea's Kospi index, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and the Dutch group ASML. By contrast, some firms seen as vulnerable to AI disruption, such as the advertising group WPP and the analytics company Relx, saw their shares rise. Separately, a cross-party group of UK parliamentarians warned on the same day that no country yet had adequate laws to address the human rights risks posed by AI, reflecting broader unease beyond Washington.
Trump's response chimed with wider scepticism voiced by senior figures in his administration. Vice-president JD Vance told reporters he found it curious that AI firms were 'begging' government to regulate them, suggesting this looked like a 'Trojan horse', while former White House AI and crypto adviser David Sacks has previously raised concerns that calls for regulation from big AI firms could amount to 'regulatory capture', entrenching incumbents against smaller rivals. Asked at the weekend whether AI might ultimately pose an existential threat to humanity, Trump dismissed the idea, saying simply that it 'won't happen'. The coverage varied in emphasis: some outlets focused primarily on Trump's rhetoric and his administration's dismissive posture, while others gave greater weight to the market turmoil triggered by the AI leaders' warnings, and to the substance of Amodei's essay and Coxon's resignation. One report situated the episode as a single item within a broader US politics digest covering unrelated stories, including postal voting litigation and diesel prices, rather than treating it as a standalone development.
Where outlets differ
Source 1 (Daily Mail-style) focuses heavily on Trump's own quotes, the Vance 'Trojan horse' remark, and David Sacks's 'regulatory capture' warning, giving most space to the administration's perspective.
Source 3 (The Guardian) puts far more emphasis on the market fallout — detailing specific share price drops across Nvidia, AMD, SoftBank, TSMC, ASML and others — and frames the story around the tech leaders' original warning as much as Trump's reaction.
Source 4 gives the fullest account of Amodei's essay itself, plus Sam Altman's and Elon Musk's reactions, and is the only source to detail Jacob Coxon's resignation from Anthropic and the Pew Research survey on public AI attitudes.
Source 2 (Guardian live blog) treats the Trump AI comments as a brief item embedded within a much wider round-up of unrelated US news (postal voting rules, Ukraine/diesel prices, a vandalised Charlie Kirk statue, a measles death), rather than as a dedicated story.
Only Source 3 mentions the UK parliamentary group's human rights warning on AI regulation, giving the story a British policy angle absent from the US-focused sources.
More coverage
- The Guardian — Trump claims he is only ‘guardrail’ needed to control AI as top Republicans join him in dismissing calls for more checks – live
- The Guardian — Trump attacks ‘sick conspiracy’ against AI as tech stocks slide
- Variety — Trump Says He’s the Only AI ‘Guardrail’ Needed and Mocks Anthropic CEO’s Call for AI Slowdown: ‘Pretending to Be a Perfect Little Angel’