{"id":272,"date":"2026-06-03T04:27:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T04:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=272"},"modified":"2026-06-03T04:27:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T04:27:21","slug":"the-president-keeps-contradicting-himself-on-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=272","title":{"rendered":"The President Keeps Contradicting Himself on AI"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

For months now, the White House has hinted that it may try to rein in the AI industry. Just two weeks ago, the nation\u2019s top tech executives\u2014including Sam Altman and Dario Amodei\u2014were invited to attend a ceremony for the signing of a long-anticipated executive order on AI. But just hours before the ceremony, Donald Trump scrapped it. America is leading the world in the AI race, the president told reporters at the time, \u201cand I don\u2019t want to do anything that\u2019s going to get in the way of that lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more What Trump Wants From Bill Pulte<\/a><\/p>\n

Apparently, Trump has changed his mind again. Earlier today, the president signed an executive order that will create a process for top AI companies to voluntarily share certain upcoming models with the government for safety testing up to one month before wider release. OpenAI, Anthropic, and the like will also be asked to work with the government to shore up federal, state, and local cyberdefenses. The White House spokesperson Liz Huston told us that the policy reflects a \u201ccommon-sense approach of collaborating with industry to balance innovation and security.\u201d<\/p>\n

The order itself is relatively toothless: Even before today, the major AI firms already had agreements in place that allowed the government to preemptively test their models for safety risks. The new rule \u201ceffectively formalizes what has already been happening between the US government and the leading AI companies,\u201d Daniel Remler, an AI expert at the Center for a New American Security, told us.<\/p>\n

But the executive order is meaningful in that the president is doing something\u2014anything\u2014about AI. At the start of his second term, Trump signaled to tech companies that he would stay out of the way. Last January, he rescinded a set of modest Joe Biden\u2013era policies, calling the rules \u201cdangerous\u201d and a \u201cbarrier\u201d to American AI leadership. Even the preamble of today\u2019s executive order celebrates that Trump \u201cunleashed tremendous technological growth\u201d by \u201cslashing the bureaucratic constraints that the prior administration placed on America\u2019s AI developers.\u201d Yet core components of those supposedly dangerous Biden-era AI regulations\u2014 to share information about advanced AI models with federal agencies, for instance, as well as federal programs to leverage AI for cyberdefense\u2014are strikingly similar to today\u2019s new AI executive order. Dean Ball, a former AI adviser to the Trump administration, wrote that the policy \u201cis considerably more intrusive\u201d than Biden\u2019s executive order.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s order still could have been much more forceful. When the White House first started previewing the possibility of regulatory action in May, one administration official suggested that AI models would be reviewed \u201cjust like an FDA drug.\u201d Even the leaked draft text of the version that Trump had originally planned to sign last month would have been more burdensome for tech companies. After David Sacks, the White House\u2019s former AI czar, reportedly called the president to complain, Trump canceled the signing ceremony. Today, after the new order was announced, Sacks declared the watered-down provisions a \u201cgame changer\u201d on X\u2014despite the fact that the new government-review process is not so different from what he had originally opposed. This means that two former libertarian AI advisers to the White House\u2014Ball and Sacks\u2014disagree about whether this order is a good thing.<\/p>\n

At the same time, joining Sacks in praising the rule is Steve Bannon, Trump\u2019s former chief strategist and a leading critic of AI on the right. \u201cIt\u2019s not perfect,\u201d he told us. \u201cBut directionally, it is pretty damn good.\u201d As Bannon sees it, despite the fact the order is weaker than earlier versions, codifying rules is a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

The entire, chaotic saga\u2014a wishy-washy White House, confused statements from populist and tech-elite Trump whisperers\u2014is only the latest in a long string of strange, often contradictory AI-policy positions. Trump\u2019s approach to AI has been inconsistent, if not incoherent, almost since the day he retook office. Consider that, for all the talk of cybersecurity, this administration has also gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the government agency that aims to protect the nation against hackers. CISA also happens to be one of the main federal agencies tasked with implementing today\u2019s executive order.<\/p>\n

Read more One Reason Trump Might Have Chosen His New Intelligence Chief<\/a><\/p>\n

Or take the White House\u2019s relationship with Anthropic. On the one hand, Anthropic likely triggered the executive order in the first place. In April, the company announced Claude Mythos Preview, a new model with advanced hacking capabilities that has ignited concern over the growing power of AI companies. Ever since, the president has seemed to cozy up to Anthropic. Dario Amodei, the firm\u2019s CEO, visited the White House that same month for conversations over the future of the government\u2019s relationship with the company. \u201cI like high-IQ people, and they definitely have high IQs,\u201d Trump later told reporters of Anthropic\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the Trump administration appears to be fighting in court to bar Anthropic from doing most national-security work. In February, the Pentagon designated Anthropic a \u201csupply chain risk\u201d after a high-profile contract dispute over the use of AI in warfare, essentially declaring it a national-security risk for the military to even touch Anthropic products. In late April, when Anthropic tried to grant Mythos access to more companies for cyberdefense\u2014very in line with today\u2019s executive order\u2014the White House appears to have, inexplicably, blocked the move. (An Anthropic spokesperson pointed us to a post on X in which the company called today\u2019s executive order \u201can important step in strengthening America\u2019s leadership in AI.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the administration\u2019s attitudes toward China. Trump has repeatedly emphasized the need to deregulate the AI industry in order to stay ahead of China. Meanwhile, he has also permitted Nvidia to sell some of its most advanced AI chips to Chinese companies, lifting an export control the Biden administration put in place precisely to waylay Chinese AI development. (Anthropic, by the way, denied a Chinese think tank access to Mythos.) Trump has, in the name of beating China, pushed to remove regulatory constraints on data-center construction: \u201cBuild, baby, build,\u201d he said last July. But once uproar emerged about data centers hiking up electricity bills, the White House announced a voluntary pledge for AI companies to take a number of measures that would prevent everyday people from paying for data-center electricity. Build, baby, but prudently.<\/p>\n

Indeed, at least some of the vacillations seem to be driven by public opinion. Over the past several months, as AI models have improved, attitudes toward the technology have soured. Today\u2019s order allows the administration to look as if it is undertaking more robust AI regulation\u2014but it doesn\u2019t actually require the industry to do very much, if anything. Trump is trying to score points with both the public and Silicon Valley. But in doing so, he\u2019s not saying or doing anything substantive at all.<\/p>\n

AI spending is consuming the U.S. economy, people are afraid of losing their jobs to AI, and communities across the nation are gathering to protest data centers. Political figures as divergent as Bannon and Bernie Sanders are expressing concern over AI and the concentration of power among the industry\u2019s executives. This would seem to be a clarion call for the president of the United States, and a populist one at that. Instead, the White House spent weeks prevaricating on an executive order that rests on the voluntary cooperation of the AI industry. With Anthropic, OpenAI, and their competitors becoming major economic and geopolitical powers, the window for any one government to seriously regulate AI is rapidly closing. Hopefully, it is not already gone.<\/p>\n

Read more How to (Try to) Get a Job Now<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s new AI order is a lot of nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"\nThe President Keeps Contradicting Himself on AI - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=272\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The President Keeps Contradicting Himself on AI - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Donald Trump\u2019s new AI order is a lot of nothing.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=272\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-03T04:27:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=272#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=272\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"The President Keeps Contradicting Himself on AI\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-03T04:27:21+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=272\"},\"wordCount\":1316,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=272#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/5deaf6d7646ed24a6b7567359e4940d2.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=272#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=272\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=272\",\"name\":\"The President Keeps Contradicting Himself on AI - 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