President Trump used a Truth Social post Monday to attack critics of artificial intelligence and data centers, framing growing unease about the technology’s risks as a coordinated effort that benefits only China.
“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” Trump wrote. “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!”
He continued: “We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”
Trump also singled out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, pointing to him as an example of an AI executive the administration says it already reined in but who now presents himself as, in the president’s words, a “perfect little angel.”
In June, the Trump administration blocked foreign access to Anthropic’s advanced Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models on national-security grounds. The Pentagon had already barred Anthropic from government use, and the Commerce Department restricted foreign access to its most powerful models. Anthropic subsequently cut off all customer access, describing the episode as a misunderstanding.
Trump pointed to that episode as evidence the government can police AI firms when necessary, arguing the greater risk is that the U.S. slows down and cedes ground to China. “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” he wrote.
Researchers Sound a Different Alarm
Trump’s remarks came days after researchers connected to OpenAI and Anthropic warned that leading AI labs are advancing rapidly toward systems they privately fear could escape human control.
“Do not underestimate the power of this technology,” said Jacob Coxon, a researcher who has worked on training AI models. “These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.” “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s alignment science lead, backed up that assessment, writing: “Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”
Trump did not engage with those warnings on technical grounds. Instead, he characterized them as part of a political effort that, in his telling, serves Beijing’s interests by sowing division among Americans over the technology’s rapid rollout.
The exchange leaves open a question that predates this administration and will outlast it: whether concerns raised by AI researchers themselves reflect genuine scientific caution or, as the president suggests, something else entirely — and what oversight framework, if any, would apply were a different administration to hold the reins on AI policy in the future.
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