Trump Dismisses AI CEOs' Bipartisan Call to Slow Development, Says 'Whoever Wins AI, Wins'

President Trump, speaking to reporters Sunday, September 13, 2026, rejected a rare joint call from the CEOs of Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI urging the industry and government to slow the pace of frontier AI development over safety concerns, arguing the US cannot afford to cede ground to China. 'We're leading China in AI, we're the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins,' Trump said, dismissing warnings about the technology's risks as exaggerated and claiming 'negative forces' were behind the alarm. He singled out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for criticism over Amodei's public warnings that AI development was outpacing safety guardrails. House Speaker Mike Johnson separately downplayed calls for federal AI regulation. In a Truth Social post, Trump blamed a 'SICK conspiracy' for growing public backlash against AI data center construction in local communities, saying 'the only one that is happy about it is China.'