Trump calls AI regulation a sick conspiracy

Donald Trump has dismissed efforts to regulate artificial intelligence as a “SICK conspiracy” against AI and data centres, according to a Guardian live blog, arguing that the only control the technology needs is “a strong and smart president.” In the same reporting, House Speaker Mike Johnson said the White House would meet AI executives soon, while warning against acting “irrationally or haphazardly” in ways that could cost the US its edge.

The split on display is less about whether AI is powerful than about who gets to set the rules. Some AI company leaders have publicly called for slower development, the Guardian notes, language that can read as caution and also as a way to lock in incumbents that can afford compliance. Johnson’s comments point to the other fear inside Washington: that writing rules without technical clarity can harden into a permanent advantage for whoever already has the lawyers, the compute, and the government relationships.

Vice-president JD Vance, speaking to reporters, treated the sudden enthusiasm for regulation from parts of the tech sector as suspect, calling it potentially a “Trojan horse,” according to the Guardian. That suspicion sits alongside a parallel push from Capitol Hill to build an AI posture framed as national competition. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called for a briefing for all senators with administration officials focused on regulation and on stopping China’s AI advancement, the Guardian reports, pairing “serious guardrails” with the language of leadership and security.

This is the familiar Washington bargain: the case for oversight is sold as public protection, but the argument that closes the deal is geopolitical. Once AI governance is treated as a race, the default policy becomes selective restraint—enough to reassure voters, not enough to slow domestic deployment—while enforcement tends to land on smaller players who cannot negotiate exemptions. Trump’s own formulation collapses the process further, replacing agencies and statutes with personal assurance that the administration has already stopped CEOs from doing “bad or potentially bad things.”

The practical question is not whether AI will be regulated, but whether regulation will be legible to outsiders. A meeting with executives behind closed doors can produce “guardrails” that look like safety to the public and like market structure to the firms at the table.

Trump’s post offered a one-line standard for a technology that is being built by private companies and priced by capital markets: trust the president.