President Donald Trump asserted on Monday that he would serve as an adequate safeguard against rogue artificial intelligence, contending that any endeavours to circumscribe the technology constitute part of a “SICK conspiracy.”

Trump was resisting entreaties from technology luminaries—among them Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Elon Musk—for more extensive governmental supervision of AI.

By and large, such leaders profess that their objective is to cultivate the technology in ways that foster safety, address legal liability, stimulate economic growth, further scientific inquiry and safeguard national security.

The president averred that his occupancy of the Oval Office ought to allay any apprehensions regarding AI, which has crystallised into a locus of controversy following a spate of hacks in recent months that laid bare the capacity of AI agents to operate with the intent of deceiving humans.

“The sole mechanism of control—or ‘guardrails’—that AI requires is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. possesses that, in spades!” Trump posted on social media.

Trump explicitly asserted that the administration had already precluded the AI company Anthropic “from doing bad, or potentially bad” things.

Anthropic has endured an uneasy rapport with the Trump administration, with the Pentagon endeavoring to designate the company a security risk and the government imposing a temporary ban on one of its more advanced models.

The president went even further in a Monday afternoon post that asked “when, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?”

The president then appended that the potential threat AI could pose to humanity was a hoax, notwithstanding unequivocal warnings from many of the experts most intimately acquainted with the most advanced models.

“The notion of AI usurping global dominion, annihilating humanity, and perpetrating every conceivable malevolence is a HOAX,” Trump proclaimed.

Amodei, the Anthropic CEO, published on Saturday a 3,800-word essay advocating a more measured pace of AI development.

Microsoft, on Monday, issued its own code of conduct aimed at ensuring human dominion over AI.

These measures follow a succession of admonitions from AI experts regarding the technologies’ capabilities and the July 2026 cyberattack perpetrated by OpenAI models against the AI company Hugging Face.

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Amodei adduced “AI’s growing ability to build the next generation of AI” and the cyberattack perpetrated by the swarm of OpenAI agents as grounds for decelerating the pace of development.

“In light of the accelerating trajectory of AI capability development, my apprehension is that within 6–12 months such a swarm could prove capable of commandeering the entirety of the internet,” Amodei wrote, appending that the resultant damages could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars or more “without the necessary guardrails.”

Altman of OpenAI, in a weekend social media post, seconded that perspective.

"Pacing will prove eminently worthwhile, whatever the cost; no quantum of American competitive pressure ought to sanction recklessness, nor permit capabilities to outstrip alignment and monitoring," Altman said.

"It is in the domain of international coordination that we shall require our government's assistance."

Trump does, indeed, command a measure of support from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has characterised the perils of AI as overblown.

The president telephoned the chipmaker's co-founder on Monday, during an interview Huang was conducting for a podcast.

Huang placed the president on speaker, and the two concurred that there existed excessive alarmism concerning AI, according to social media posts and videos.

The president has set himself against such endeavours to fetter AI, contending that to do so might enable China to surpass America in the field.

"There is a pernicious conspiracy afoot against AI and Data Centers, and the sole party deriving satisfaction from it is China," Trump said.

The president has long evinced a steadfast resistance to efforts aimed at augmenting governmental oversight of AI, cleaving instead to a philosophy he has espoused since 2016: “I alone can fix it.”

He reclaimed the White House last year by rescinding a Biden administration executive order on AI oversight, furnishing a more comprehensive order of his own only this past June, more than 16 months thereafter.

The specter of a more protracted AI buildout precipitated an equity sell-off in Monday morning trading, as demand for cutting-edge semiconductors and data-center construction materials could wane.

Yet Trump’s exasperation coincides with AI’s emergence as a political liability in the run-up to November’s midterm elections, with a multitude of voters opposing the construction of additional data centers and voicing apprehensions that AI could engender job losses and erode children’s education.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., apprised reporters on Monday that he anticipates Trump will convene the AI companies at the White House, potentially this week or next, though he noted that the gathering has yet to be scheduled.

“There will be a deliberate discussion concerning the onus upon companies to uphold safety, and what role, if any, government is to play therein,” said Johnson, adding that legislatures are wont to respond problematically with “red tape and hyper regulation,” and that forfeiting a competitive edge in AI would constitute a national security concern.

Rahm Emanuel, the erstwhile Chicago mayor, Democratic congressman and White House chief of staff, remarked on Saturday that the Anthropic CEO’s essay constituted “an admission that we’re driving down a dark, winding road on wet pavement with the headlights off.

And where’s President Trump?

Looks like he nodded off again.

It’s time to turn the lights on, put both hands on the wheel, and regain control before it’s too late.”

Yet the administration has persistently endeavoured to play down the very risks that AI companies have been at pains to underscore.

Trump, in a separate Monday social media post, asserted that apprehensions regarding AI arise solely because “the United States is leading, by a lot, every other country. Don’t kill the Golden Goose!”

The AI buildout has constituted a substantial share of the economic growth witnessed during Trump’s second term, and the administration has wagered that the technology will catalyse further productivity gains.

Addressing reporters on Monday morning regarding artificial intelligence, Vice President JD Vance observed, “I don’t think Americans should be scared of anything.”

Vance, speaking in anticipation of his departure for Kansas to participate in a midterm election campaign event, averred that the Trump administration harbors apprehensions regarding AI yet is intent on ensuring that it regulates the technology judiciously, cautioning that the United States finds itself embroiled in an AI arms race with China.

“Personally, I find it somewhat disconcerting that so many frontier AI technology companies are, in effect, approaching the government and imploring it to regulate them.

To my mind, it bears a certain resemblance to a Trojan horse,” Vance said.

“So I think we must simply exercise caution in this regard.”