Trump Rejects AI Slowdown Push on September 14-15, Calls Safety Campaign a Sick Conspiracy Benefiting China, Widening Geopolitical Split Over Frontier Model Regulation

President Trump rejected calls from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and xAI CEO Elon Musk to slow frontier AI development, stating from his Ireland golf resort on September 13 that whoever wins AI wins and that negative forces are bringing up things that won't happen, according to NPR and multiple outlets. On September 14, Trump escalated on Truth Social, calling AI safety warnings a sick conspiracy benefiting China, declaring that the only guardrail AI needs is a strong and smart president, and singling out Amodei as pretending to be a perfect little angel. Trump wrote that his administration already has tremendous criminal and regulatory power over these companies and that AI taking over the world and destroying humanity is a hoax, framing the slowdown push as reminiscent of the climate change scam. On September 15, Trump phoned into Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's All-In Summit appearance to reinforce the message, stating that anyone opposing data center construction is playing into China's hands. White House AI czar David Sacks backed Trump's position, questioning why frontier labs would seek federal intervention rather than slowing their own work unilaterally and suggesting safety concerns are a Trojan horse for regulatory capture. The clash followed Amodei's September 13 essay calling for companies and governments to slow how fast AI capabilities are improved, citing risks of humans losing control of AI systems and opportunities for AI-enabled cyberattacks and bioterrorism. Amodei proposed international cooperation and third-party evaluators embedded in labs, with Altman and Musk both initially agreeing with the concerns in social media posts on September 13. Trump's vehement pushback underscores the widening geopolitical divide over AI regulation, with the administration prioritizing speed and competitiveness over safety frameworks, positioning any slowdown as advantageous to China regardless of the technical risk. For global AI governance, the