Trump's meeting with tech leaders leaves AI safety more unsettled than ever

US President Donald Trump speaks with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the White House driveway following a luncheon for tech leaders in the East Room, in Washington, D.C., US, Sept. 29, 2026.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

After President Donald Trump's lunch with AI leaders on Tuesday, the leading artificial intelligence companies are right where they were before: policing themselves.

Trump hosted top execs from Alphabet, Meta, SpaceX, Nvidia, Palantir, Anthropic, OpenAI, and other companies following a three-week stretch during which the topic of AI safety turned into an intense nationwide debate, with leading industry researchers and executives warning of the extreme threats posed by the most powerful models.

But while the concerns voiced this month by the likes of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have led many policymakers and industry experts to demand government regulation, Trump has steadfastly opposed any such moves, and called AI fears a "hoax."

On Tuesday, Trump brought leaders to the White House to sign a two-page document, including one with signatures, that he shared on his Truth Social account. It was titled, "White House Accord on Super Intelligence: Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities."

The document says that the group believes "every company is responsible for developing its own technology safely and in a way that builds trust with customers and the public." Signatories included some of the same people who have been insisting that, in the absence of a coordinated safety effort, their technology can't be trusted.

"You saw two weeks ago almost all those same CEOs say they should be regulated," said Bradley Tusk, CEO of Tusk Ventures, in an interview on CNBC's "Closing Bell Overtime" on Tuesday. "It's not because they fundamentally believe in the power of the state. They want something that creates an equalizer for each other."

'This is a start'

Oliver Contreras | Afp | Getty Images

And Alphabet's Sundar Pichai described the moment as "historic and consequential."