President Trump on Monday blasted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for urging AI firms to pace development, alleging the safety warnings are part of a “conspiracy” that could help China.
In a Truth Social post Monday morning, Trump doubled down on his dismissal of safety concerns, writing: “The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ – and we will continue to do so!”
“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!
“Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”
About three hours later, Trump followed up with another Truth Social post calling the risk of AI destroying humanity a “HOAX.”
“Concerning AI, 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?” he wrote. “AI, and Data Centers, will be the Greatest Economic Development Engine in History.”
He also took a jab at Google’s plans to build a massive plant in Finland due to permitting issues in the US, saying he wants them “to change their thinking.”
Public sentiment toward data centers and artificial intelligence has been souring for months, but safety concerns took center stage over the weekend after Amodei published a lengthy essay urging global tech giants to slow their development of AI models.
OpenAI boss Sam Altman and SpaceX founder Elon Musk backed Amodei’s three-step plan to add guardrails to the rapidly progressing technology, which requires cooperation from AI rivals around the world.
It comes after AI researcher Jacob Coxon, who previously worked at Anthropic and OpenAI, last week quit his job and warned that AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade” in a post on X that has racked up more than 171 million views.
But the Trump administration has positioned itself as a friendly one toward the AI industry. An executive order signed by the president in June encouraged a hands-off approach to AI regulation.
So far in Trump’s second term, AI spending has helped prop up the economy. The Federal Reserve – which is largely expected to hike interest rates this week – has repeatedly mentioned massive AI capital expenditures as a highlight of the economy at meetings.
Meanwhile, Amodei’s firm has a history of battling with the Trump administration over AI safety risks.
The Department of War labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk – a harsh designation often reserved for foreign companies – after the firm refused to allow the Pentagon unfettered access to its AI tools for surveillance or military capabilities.
Meanwhile, Trump is gearing up for a Sept. 24 visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
A key part of Amodei’s safety plan is global cooperation between top tech companies, fostered by the US government – but Chinese leaders have already signaled they are unwilling to give up control over their work on AI models.
“Fear mongering, confrontation, competition will just disrupt [the] process of global AI governance,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, said Monday, according to a translation by Reuters.
An editorial by the state-backed Global Times compared calls for China to slow its AI advancements to a “Cold War” tactic.
At a summit in New Delhi over the weekend, President Xi Jinping said China will take the lead when it comes to fostering global AI collaboration among developing countries.
In his essay, Amodei predicted that foreign rivals may not be willing to coordinate on the pacing of AI development.
“I think that’s going to be very difficult because the incentives to pull ahead and the military advantage that you get from that are so large. And honestly, I don’t know if it’s possible, but we should try,” Amodei told CBS News’ “Sunday Morning.”
