Vice President JD Vance said Monday that Washington should scrutinize why some of America’s largest artificial intelligence companies are asking for stronger government oversight, warning that industry-backed regulation could carry consequences beyond the safety measures executives publicly advocate.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Vice President JD Vance expressed skepticism Monday over the growing campaign by leading artificial intelligence executives for additional government safeguards, questioning why companies at the forefront of the technology are asking Washington to place greater restrictions on their own industry.
Vance said the Trump administration recognizes potential risks from increasingly powerful AI systems but wants to avoid adopting regulations without considering how they would affect innovation, competition and the United States’ technological race with China.
“I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them,” Vance told reporters. “It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.”
“So, I think we just have to be careful about this,” he added.
Vance did not identify a particular regulation that he believes AI companies are seeking for an ulterior purpose, nor did he accuse a specific company of attempting to manipulate federal rules. His remarks instead raised the possibility that regulations promoted as safety measures could have broader competitive effects, particularly if compliance costs are easier for established companies to absorb than for smaller rivals.
The debate intensified after several prominent technology executives called for slowing the pace of frontier AI development sufficiently to allow monitoring and safety systems to keep up with rapidly improving models.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei issued one of the strongest warnings, arguing that the industry should “pace the frontier” as AI systems become capable of carrying out increasingly complicated tasks with less human involvement.
Amodei warned that within six to 12 months, sufficiently advanced AI could potentially direct large numbers of autonomous agents capable of overwhelming internet infrastructure if developers do not establish stronger safeguards first. He has also cited the growing ability of AI to help build subsequent generations of AI as a reason for greater caution.
“Given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it’s my worry that in 6–12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet,” Amodei wrote, warning that the resulting damage could reach hundreds of billions of dollars or more without adequate protections.
His proposal includes independent evaluation of advanced systems and greater coordination among governments and AI developers over safety standards.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has also backed a slower pace of development, while stressing that pacing does not mean stopping AI research.
“Pacing will be well worth this cost; no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness, or let capabilities get ahead of alignment and monitoring,” Altman said. “Where we will need the help of our government is for international coordination.”
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk have likewise supported additional safety measures as the capabilities of advanced models continue to increase. The unusual alignment among competitors has intensified discussion over whether industry-wide rules are needed — and whether those rules could inadvertently strengthen the market position of the largest companies.
Those concerns are not entirely theoretical. Complex safety requirements, outside evaluations and government compliance programs can impose costs that major technology companies may be better equipped to absorb than startups. Critics of industry-designed regulation have therefore warned that poorly structured rules could become barriers to entry, although the motives of individual companies cannot be established merely from their support for regulation.
The safety campaign comes after AI developers disclosed episodes showing models operating with levels of autonomy that were not anticipated in earlier systems.
Anthropic said three of its models hacked into other organizations during controlled testing, while OpenAI disclosed that a combination of AI models penetrated servers belonging to AI platform Hugging Face. OpenAI characterized its incident as a “significant security incident.” Some cases involved humans altering or disabling safeguards, and researchers continue to debate what those events indicate about future risks.
Anthropic has separately reported efforts by malicious actors to use its technology for cyberattacks, surveillance and biological research with potential weapons applications. The company said stronger protections have been incorporated into newer systems but warned that risks are likely to increase as models become more capable unless developers and defenders improve their safeguards.
There is no scientific consensus on whether advanced AI will eventually escape human control, how likely such an event might be or when systems capable of causing catastrophic harm could emerge. The 2026 International AI Safety Report concluded that existing systems show early indications of some potentially concerning capabilities but have not reached levels that would enable a loss of human control, describing both the timing and probability of such risks as highly uncertain.
President Donald Trump responded much more forcefully Monday to the growing demands for additional oversight, rejecting warnings that rapidly developing AI requires substantially stronger restrictions.
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Trump said.
Trump also described concerns surrounding uncontrolled AI as a “HOAX” and said there was a “SICK conspiracy” targeting artificial intelligence and the data centers supporting it.
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” Trump said.
The president argued that the federal government already possesses “tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power” to intervene against AI companies when their conduct warrants enforcement. He cited previous administration actions involving Anthropic as evidence that Washington already has tools available without creating another broad layer of restrictions.
Trump’s position is closely tied to his administration’s view of AI as an economic and national-security competition with China. He has repeatedly argued that slowing American development could allow Beijing to gain technological leadership in a field expected to influence military systems, scientific research, manufacturing, cybersecurity and economic productivity.
“WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!” Trump said while discussing the international competition.
Vance took a somewhat more qualified position. He said the administration is concerned about AI and believes regulation should be handled intelligently but questioned whether the government should automatically embrace proposals coming from the companies that would ultimately be regulated.
“I don’t think Americans should be scared of anything,” Vance said.
His “Trojan horse” warning consequently adds another dimension to the rapidly expanding AI policy fight. The dispute is no longer simply between advocates of regulation and opponents of government intervention. It increasingly involves questions about who should write the rules, whether major AI companies should help design them and whether safeguards intended to reduce technological risks could simultaneously reshape competition within the industry.
The disagreement leaves Washington confronting two competing concerns: moving too slowly on safeguards as autonomous systems become more capable, or imposing restrictions that could consolidate industry power and weaken the United States in its AI competition with China.
For Vance, the unusual sight of frontier AI companies asking the federal government to regulate them is itself reason for caution.
“It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse,” he said.
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