WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance on Monday questioned why technology executives are urging the federal government to regulate artificial intelligence, suggesting the push could be “a bit of a Trojan horse.”
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk have all advocated stronger government oversight of AI. They have also called for slowing the pace at which the emerging technology is being developed.
“I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them,” Vance told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before leaving for events in the Kansas City area. “It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.”
President Donald Trump appeared to share Vance’s view, arguing Monday that he himself could provide an adequate safeguard against artificial intelligence that goes rogue.
“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.
Trump has repeatedly characterized artificial intelligence as part of a global race for technological dominance. He has also alleged that a “sick conspiracy” is targeting AI development and data centers, possibly with influence from China.
“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. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!” he wrote.
The debate over AI safeguards has intensified after researchers at Anthropic warned that the rapidly advancing technology could potentially kill all of humanity by 2030.
