Vice President J.D. Vance on Monday raised pointed suspicions about the motives behind Big Tech’s growing calls for federal regulation of artificial intelligence.
Mr. Vance warned that frontier AI companies’ lobbying of Washington to govern the technology may be running a “Trojan horse” scheme designed to cement their dominance and lock out smaller competitors.
“It’s something that we’re concerned by, but we want to make sure that we actually regulate smartly. And we’re thoughtful about the risk here,” Mr. Vance told reporters before boarding Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews.
“There are obviously risks to AI. There are some benefits to AI. … I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies are coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them,” he said. “It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.”
Echoing President Trump’s concerns, Mr. Vance said the Chinese are engaged in a long-term race against the U.S. in developing AI, and the administration wants to make sure the U.S. does things smartly while staying ahead of the curve.
Mr. Vance’s remarks come days after big tech company CEO’s, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and X’s Elon Musk, have come together to back an urgent proposal by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to purposely slow down frontier AI development to ensure adequate alignment and safety guardrails.
Industry insiders have recently warned that the technology could wipe out civilization within a decade if it falls into the wrong hands or breaks out of its limits set by humans.
Mr. Trump recently issued a voluntary framework calling on AI companies to share powerful new models with the government before public release. The idea is to enhance AI security and innovation.
The president says the U.S. cannot be too cautious. He said the U.S. must compete with China for AI dominance and embrace the data centers that power the technology, despite non-in-my-backyard opposition across the country.
Mr. Trump on Monday said he is a smart president, so that should be an appropriate guardrail on AI.
“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” he said on Truth Social. “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.”
• Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this story.
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