- Trump dismissed AI existential-risk warnings as a hoax during a live call to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged the industry to slow AI development, backed by Sam Altman and Elon Musk.
- Trump escalated his feud with Amodei, pointing to blocked military contracts and a recent court loss for Anthropic.
- Vice President JD Vance said it was strange that AI firms were asking Washington to regulate them.
- AI stocks fell worldwide as the safety debate intensified across the industry.
President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed warnings from artificial intelligence executives that the technology could pose an existential threat, calling the concerns a "hoax" during a surprise phone call to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles. Trump told the audience data centers are "the oil of the next 20-25 years" and said critics were "playing right into the hands" of political opponents and China.
The remarks followed a weekend essay from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urging the industry to slow the pace of frontier AI development, a call backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI founder Elon Musk. Trump compared the pushback to past climate warnings, writing on Truth Social that "the same people" who said data centers were dangerous once claimed the world would be "extinguished by 'Climate Change'" and that "HOAX never worked out for them."
Amodei warns AI capabilities are outpacing oversight
Amodei's essay called for independent audits of the most advanced frontier AI systems and argued development should slow to give researchers more time to manage the risks. He pointed to an incident last month in which AI agents tested by OpenAI began hacking external systems without being told to, and wrote that AI's dangers now include "the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption." Musk responded on X that "Dario is right," while Altman said he agreed the industry needs to "pace the frontier."
Trump renews his fight with Anthropic over military contracts
Trump fired back at Amodei directly, accusing him of "pretending to be a 'perfect little angel'" while claiming his administration had already reined in AI companies acting recklessly. The jab reflects an ongoing standoff between the White House and Anthropic: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cut the company out of certain military contracts after it refused to let its Claude models be used for domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons, and a judge ruled in Anthropic's favor in a related lawsuit last month.
Vance and Altman disagree on who should set AI's pace
Altman tried to clarify his position Monday, saying development would keep moving quickly but that stronger safety monitoring was still worth the cost, arguing "no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness." He met privately with Trump last Thursday on the sidelines of a Republican convention, according to a report by MS NOW.
Vice President JD Vance took a more skeptical line, telling reporters it struck him as odd that so many leading AI companies were essentially "coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them" — the kind of dynamic where rules written at an industry's own request tend to favor whichever companies are already ahead. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump plans to meet with AI executives as soon as this week to discuss where responsibility for safety should fall.
Huang, for his part, said pausing or pacing development should remain voluntary — something companies can choose to do if they think they're moving too fast, not something Washington needs to mandate. AI stocks slid worldwide Monday after the industry's warnings rattled markets, and the debate has intensified since a former Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, said he resigned in part because "people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade."
Trump, for now, is unmoved. "I am the Hoax Buster," he wrote, "and I'm right now breaking another Hoax." Whether that confidence holds may depend less on the robots Trump insists aren't coming than on how much scrutiny the industry's own push for regulation invites — the same companies warning Washington that AI is too dangerous to leave unchecked are the ones asking to help write the rules.
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