AI Leaders Want Slowdown. Trump Team: Do It Yourselves — SkimNews
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- Dario Amodei, Anthropic's CEO, called on the US government in a Saturday essay to regulate AI labs and either participate in or waive antitrust rules so competing companies can set joint safety standards, also requesting international coordination including with the Chinese Communist Party.
- Sam Altman (OpenAI) and Elon Musk (owner of chatbot Grok) both endorsed Amodei's essay, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also publicly calling for pacing AI development.
- David Sacks, co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, responded on X telling labs to "stop pretending you need anyone else's permission" and "stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic," arguing antitrust law should not be suspended to "form a cartel."
- President Trump, during an Ireland visit, said "We're leading China on AI and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins," framing pause efforts as a concession to Beijing.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson warned on CNN that if "Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China."
- OpenAI's Altman committed Sunday night to Amodei's proposal for embedded third-party evaluators with employee-level access to verify practices, products, and incident reporting — measures he said carry "significant costs" but that "no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness."
Why it matters: The debate crystallizes a split between lab leaders — who want Washington-enabled coordination on safety — and a White House that frames any pause as handing China the AI lead. With Altman already committing to third-party safety evaluators regardless of government action, voluntary self-policing may become the default path even as Trump's team dismisses the regulatory case.
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