Jensen Huang, Zuckerberg, Musk lobbied Trump to kill AI oversight body

The CEOs of Nvidia, Meta and SpaceX successfully lobbied President Donald Trump to block the creation of an AI regulatory body, as debate over whether to slow the pace of AI development has emerged as a major policy flashpoint.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday (local time), citing multiple sources, that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk of SpaceX each separately conveyed their concerns to Trump in recent weeks, ultimately derailing plans for the oversight body. The three executives argued that a privately led AI regulatory and standards body — an idea that had been circulating in the industry following a proposal by Google Chief Scientist Demis Hassabis — risked concentrating power in the hands of the three dominant AI companies: OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.

The executives also raised concerns about who would be selected to lead and staff the proposed body, sources said.

In their individual conversations with Trump over recent weeks, all three said they preferred the administration's current light-touch approach to regulation.

The issue has also divided opinion within the White House and across the administration.

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross have pushed for stronger AI oversight and clearer guidelines, while White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks has repeatedly urged Trump to stick with a minimal-regulation approach, the Journal reported.

Trump has since thrown his weight behind accelerating AI development, posting on Truth Social that there is a "sick and demented conspiracy against AI and data centers" and that "the only one that benefits is China."

The US AI industry remains sharply divided on the question of development speed since Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a piece arguing for a slowdown. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google's Hassabis have expressed sympathy with that view, while Huang and Zuckerberg have pushed back.

Speaking at a recent Salesforce event, Huang said safety is "the top priority, but it is also an engineering problem," adding that speed and safety can be achieved simultaneously. Zuckerberg has also argued against an external regulatory body, saying individual companies have both the responsibility and the ability to set and maintain appropriate development paces on their own.

Musk, by contrast, responded to Amodei's argument by saying "Dario is right," though his AI company xAI has not put forward any concrete plans regarding its own development pace. Hassabis had previously proposed establishing a privately led AI regulatory and standards body modeled on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.