Trump rejects Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI CEOs' joint call to slow AI development

President Trump dismissed a joint call from the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI to slow the pace of frontier AI development, telling reporters during a trip to Ireland on September 13, 2026 that the United States cannot afford to cede ground to China.

What's new

Speaking to reporters, Trump said: "Look, we're leading China in AI... and, frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins." He also waved off the safety concerns driving the CEOs' request, saying: "And we can put guardrails. We can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up."

The remarks were Trump's first public response to a coordinated moment a day earlier in which Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI, and Elon Musk of xAI all backed a call to reduce the pace at which frontier labs ship more powerful models.

Context

Amodei's call framed the risk in stark terms: building frontier AI too fast is reckless given the potential for loss of control of AI systems, misuse for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and major economic disruption. Musk and Altman both publicly aligned with Amodei rather than defending their usual competitive pace, an unusual show of unity among three companies that otherwise compete aggressively for model supremacy, developer share, and enterprise contracts. Amodei himself had acknowledged the toughest dilemma with his own proposal: if China does not follow suit, slowing down could just cede ground to a less cautious rival.

Why it matters

Trump's rejection sets up a direct conflict between the administration's China-competition framing of AI policy and the industry's own leadership calling for restraint. It signals that voluntary pacing agreements among labs are unlikely to be reinforced by federal policy in the near term, and that the administration will continue to treat AI primarily as a strategic competition with China rather than a domain requiring precautionary slowdown. For the labs, it means any deliberate pacing will have to be self-imposed rather than backed by regulation, leaving competitive pressure as the dominant force shaping release cadence.