AI CEOs Split on Regulation as Trump Calls Safety Fears 'Hoax' — SkimNews
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- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed a three-step plan to slow AI development, calling for third-party evaluators embedded in labs, domestic industry coordination, and international agreements potentially backed by government.
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk publicly appeared to agree with aspects of all three of Amodei's proposals.
- Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang scuttled proposals for an industry-funded independent AI regulator modeled on FINRA, according to the Wall Street Journal.
- OpenAI global affairs chief Chris Lehane told The Verge that "the AI policy window is open" and urged Congress to enact mandatory national safety standards for frontier AI.
- Donald Trump dismissed AI safety concerns as a "hoax," posting on Truth Social that the administration already wields "tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power" over AI companies.
- Nick Reese, former DHS director of emerging tech policy, noted Trump signed Executive Order 13960 on AI safety six years ago, calling the current reversal "a real change in the president's position."
- Zuckerberg wrote on X that "Every lab has the responsibility and incentive to move at the pace required to train its models safely," distancing Meta from slowdown calls.
Why it matters: The industry fracture shifts the likely regulatory outcome toward ad-hoc self-policing by whichever CEOs Trump favors, rather than the structured, government-backed framework Anthropic and OpenAI advocate. With Zuckerberg, Musk, and Huang actively blocking a FINRA-style regulator and Trump dismissing AI safety as a "hoax," the regulatory direction may hinge on political alignment more than safety arguments.
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