President Donald Trump rejected the idea of new federal artificial intelligence safety laws after a White House lunch with tech executives on Tuesday, saying industry should rely on “tremendous self-regulation” and that the Justice Department and FBI already provide oversight.
Bloomberg Law reported that Trump shot down new federal AI regulations after a luncheon with nearly two dozen Silicon Valley leaders and said existing laws would be enough to safeguard Americans from AI’s potential risks. CNBC and the New York Post quoted Trump telling reporters after the event: “There’s a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation, and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that.” He added, “But the self-regulation is very important.”
Outside the White House, Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su told CNBC she was “very encouraged” by the session and that there was “a lot of optimism and a sense of responsibility” in the room. Su said leaders discussed specifics for a framework and industry accountability. “I mean, at the end of the day, it’s our responsibility to show the power of the technology as well as ensure that it’s very safe,” she said.
CNBC reported that a seating chart shared by Trump showed him beside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai nearby, and Vice President JD Vance opposite between Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and House Speaker Mike Johnson. Other attendees named by CNBC or the Post included Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Palantir CEO Alex Karp, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
AI Tech Daily reported earlier Tuesday that Trump launched the America.gov AI portal and signed an agency-integration executive order, while noting that lunch outcomes were not yet known. Tuesday afternoon’s remarks are the on-record lunch follow-up. The stance contrasts with Bill Gates’s recent call for AI legislation, including arguments that a kill switch alone is not enough.