Thursday was supposed to be big. Pen out. Ink on the page. Then it wasn’t. Donald Trump killed the signing ceremony. No executive order today. No new safety rules for artificial intelligence.
The reason? China. Always China.
“We’re leading China… I don’t want to do anything… in the way,” he told reporters. Right there in the Oval Office. Simple math to him. Safety checks slow things down. Slow things down equals losing the edge. And losing the edge is not an option.
“We’re leading everybody,” he said.
The pressure came from outside the West Wing, mostly from inside tech. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly pushed back. Hard. Neither company commented, which usually says enough.
What was the deal? Voluntary safety checks. A framework. Before you drop a god-tier AI model into the wild, you chat with the government first. Sounds reasonable, maybe. To bureaucrats. Not to founders who live by the clock.
Tech lobbyists hated the idea. They thought it would tank profits. Or at least mess with their timelines. The order also wanted to use these models to lock down government networks, banks, hospitals. Vital sectors. Or whatever the administration calls them.
Cybersecurity fears are rising, obviously. Anthropic’s new Mythos model? It worries people. Anthropic warns it could supercharge hackers. Security experts disagree. They think the panic is overblown. But fear sells. Fear drives policy. Sometimes it drives it right into the wall.
Since taking the job back in January 2024—wait, 2025—the President has been weirdly chill with Big Tech. A sharp U-turn from Biden’s heavy hand.
But not everyone is happy.
Susie Wiles and Scott Bessent? They want more rails on the tracks. More safety. Even Steve Bannon, former advisor, sent an open letter. Mandatory testing, he argues. Because trust is cheap and dangerous.
“We cannot trust these companies,” Bannon wrote.
Trump ignored him. At least for now.
So the order stays in the drawer. Un-signed. Un-enacted. The models keep rolling. The race keeps spinning.
Is anyone actually safe?
