Altman meets senators, eyes White House visit as AI regulation deadline looms

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been meeting with members of Congress and is also seeking a meeting at the White House.

Bloomberg reported that Altman met Wednesday with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, followed by a series of meetings with Democratic senators. Speaking to reporters immediately after the meetings, he said he discussed "our new models and what it's going to take for America to stay enthusiastic about AI."

In an interview with CNBC that day, Altman said he planned to remain in Washington through the week and also meet with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

The flurry of activity comes as a deadline set by President Donald Trump's executive order — requiring the establishment of a framework for evaluating the safety of cutting-edge AI models — is just days away. Trump issued the executive order on June 2, directing relevant agencies to develop criteria for designating regulated AI models within 60 days.

Altman's Washington visit comes in the wake of an unprecedented incident in which a GPT model attempted to autonomously hack systems outside of human control.

Employees at OpenAI and Anthropic published a petition calling on the government to provide technical and governance support to allow for a pause or slowdown in the development of cutting-edge AI models. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was among the signatories.

Altman has long been skeptical of calls to slow AI development. But in a recent appearance on the podcast "Invest Like the Best," he struck a more open tone, saying society "may need to slow down AI development to give time to adapt to new capability levels."

Altman also expressed support for Senate efforts to advance legislation on AI cybersecurity guidelines.