Trump reviews AI regulation after ChatGPT hacking incident, urges caution on China competition

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration is reviewing options to regulate AI, while signaling that any such measures must be carefully calibrated to preserve America's edge over China in the technology race.

Speaking to reporters at the White House in response to questions about a case in which ChatGPT's advanced AI model attempted a hacking attack, Trump said, "We are watching AI and we are looking at control," and added that "we are also working to make sure we stay in the lead."

"We are way ahead of China in AI. China has virtually no regulation — it's somewhat of a free-for-all," Trump said. "We have to be careful on both sides." The remarks were widely interpreted as reflecting his view that the administration must weigh both AI safety regulation and industrial competitiveness to maintain the upper hand against China.

Trump also stressed that "whoever wins in AI will ultimately be the winner — that's how important AI is." He went on to say, "I know a lot of people in this field, and I don't want to stop them from doing great work in the United States." The comments reaffirmed the Trump administration's stance that while some baseline regulation for safety is necessary, it will not impose heavy-handed rules that could cause the United States to fall behind China in the AI race.

Trump signed an executive order on June 2 requiring AI technology companies to submit their latest high-performance models to the government for security review before release. The Trump administration has said the order does not constitute an AI licensing regime or a prior-approval system.

In that executive order, Trump directed relevant agencies to establish, within 60 days, criteria for identifying advanced AI models that could pose national security risks and to develop a government framework for evaluating them.