Trump: ‘All it takes to rein in AI is a strong and intelligent president’

‘The only check or restraint that AI needs is a strong and intelligent president (with a high IQ), and the United States certainly has one.’ This was written by Donald Trump on his social media platform Truth, emphasising that “the Trump administration prevented certain AI figures from carrying out harmful or potentially harmful actions, such as Dario” Amodei of Anthropic, “who is now pretending to be a perfect little angel, and we will continue to do so”.

“There is a twisted conspiracy underway against AI and data centres, and the only country rejoicing in this is China. Conspiracy theorists, beware,” he said. Paradoxically, however, it is Beijing itself that finds itself on the same side as Trump on this issue. China, in fact, is critical of the appeals made by US leaders of AI giants – including Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of SpaceX – to slow down the development of the technology, citing the dangers associated with overly rapid progress, in favour of safety measures. “Alarmism, confrontation and competition will only hinder the process of global AI governance,” said Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On Sunday, the Minister of State Security, Chen Yixin, published an article urging the acceleration of efforts to prevent and control security risks associated with AI.

Trump had previously spoken out on the possibility of reining in artificial intelligence. “We can introduce safeguards, we can do this and that, but I believe there are many negative forces raising this issue, bringing up things that won’t happen,” said the tycoon, dismissing Dario Amodei’s latest warning about the AI currently under development at an “exponential” rate and, if unchecked, within 6–12 months, could be capable of directing a swarm of agents capable of taking control of the entire Internet.

A scenario straight out of The Matrix, to which the US President replied that the US has ‘the edge over China in AI’. ‘We are the most advanced country in the world. And frankly, I want it to stay that way, because whoever wins the AI challenge wins it all,’ added Trump, claiming credit for the expression: ‘I coined it and it’s true – whoever wins takes it all.’

And yet, as recently as Saturday, Amodei launched a call on his blog to ‘slow down’ the pace of development of the most advanced AI models globally for safety reasons: ‘Progress will still seem rapid, and we will need to make wise use of the time we gain,’ he wrote. The proposal received immediate support from two undisputed leaders in the sector in America: Elon Musk (SpaceX, which controls xAI) and Sam Altman of OpenAI. Altman announced the postponement until 2027 of his company’s major IPO on Wall Street: “We will focus on safety. Now would not be the right time to go public: I’d say it won’t happen in 2026,” he explained, dispelling speculation about a possible market debut as early as this year, just a few weeks after the IPO documentation had been filed confidentially.