Trump held a closed-door luncheon at the White House with leaders of the world's top artificial intelligence companies, explicitly rejecting the path of government legislative regulation in favor of promoting industry self-regulation, and announcing that government documents will rename "artificial intelligence" as "superintelligence."
After the meeting concluded, Trump told the media that the talks were "extremely smooth and productive," and said all parties reached "a great deal of consensus" on numerous issues. He also announced that he would sign the relevant renaming executive order at 5 PM Eastern Time.
Regarding the data center controversy, Trump reiterated that related facilities can make local communities "very wealthy," and stated that AI company leaders will work with communities across the country to jointly advance project implementation. He once again characterized opponents as choosing "backwardness and poverty."
The luncheon brought together some of the most influential figures in the global technology industry. Attendees included: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk, Amazon founder Bezos, Meta CEO Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, as well as Palantir's Alex Karp and Shyam Sankar. House Speaker Mike Johnson and multiple members of Trump's cabinet also attended the meeting.
Self-Regulation Over Legislative Constraints
Trump clearly expressed his preference for industry self-regulation after the meeting, positioning law enforcement agencies rather than dedicated legislation as the core mechanism for regulating AI development.
He stated that for companies that "embark on a dangerous and dark path," the Department of Justice and the FBI are already sufficiently effective means of restraint.
He simultaneously emphasized that the United States is "far ahead" in the AI field, and the key to maintaining this advantage is precisely "not stifling growth." Trump said at an earlier event that day:
This is why I will never hinder the development of this technology — it will be more influential than the Industrial Revolution, far exceeding the internet.
The data center issue is evolving from a technical topic into a political one. A growing number of communities are expressing dissatisfaction over rising electricity bills and land and water resource consumption, and this controversy has seeped into both parties' midterm election strategies.
Trump reiterated after the meeting that data center construction can bring wealth to host communities, and reaffirmed that AI company leaders will collaborate with local communities to advance project implementation. He continued to characterize opponents as "wanting to be backward and poor."
Industry Warnings and Congressional Pressure
The political backdrop of this meeting is quite complex. Recently, multiple incidents involving AI systems going out of control have put congressional lawmakers under pressure, with growing concerns from constituents about AI's potential impact on employment and its disruption of society.
According to reports, an OpenAI autonomous system breached restrictions on the Hugging Face platform in July of this year, and was subsequently disclosed to have attempted to access Australian government websites and three U.S. federal agency websites. OpenAI announced on Monday the cancellation of its latest model Astra 6.1 release plan, citing internal testing that showed the model failed to meet safety standards.
Multiple AI industry leaders have previously warned about the risks of AI surpassing human intelligence and called for slowing the pace of development. Zuckerberg holds a different position, stating that "every lab has the responsibility and incentive to proceed at the speed needed to safely train models," opposing a collective slowdown.
At the congressional level, a rare convergence is emerging in both parties' attitudes toward AI regulation. Senator Bernie Sanders appeared on the same stage this month with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, jointly calling for a reassessment of the pace of the AI race, reflecting the bipartisan political tensions surrounding this issue.
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