Why Trump Delayed an Executive Order to Protect America from Cyber Threats

President Donald Trump on Thursday delayed signing an executive order regulating artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, citing the AI race with China.

“I think it gets in the way of… we’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that lead,” Trump told reporters on Thursday. “We have a very substantial lead on AI, it’s causing, it’s causing tremendous good, and it’s also bringing in a lot of jobs, tremendous numbers of jobs.”

“Again, we have more people working right now than we’ve ever had,” he added. “I really thought that could have been a blocker.”

Trump said he did not like “certain aspects” of the order.

Sources said the order had two sections, one on cybersecurity and another covering AI frontier models.

The order would have given the Office of the National Cyber Director 60 days to develop a framework on cybersecurity. The director, Sean Cairncross, would have been ordered to design a voluntary framework with AI developers to engage with the government over the release of covered models, sources told The Daily Signal.

The postponed signing follows weeks of conversation about how the White House should handle the rising cybersecurity threats posed by frontier AI models, such as Anthropic’s Mythos. There are many differences of opinion within the administration about the proper level of cybersecurity protections.

Some officials wanted labs to submit AI models for review pre-deployment as a condition for government contracts, while others wanted to require mandatory vetting for all new models, sources told The Daily Signal.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said he wanted every AI lab to go through a safety review process before releasing a new model, similar to the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of new drugs. 

Thursday’s order also would have made vetting of frontier AI models voluntary, according to sources. Based on the president’s statements in the Oval Office, it appears the White House will take an ever lighter touch approach to cybersecurity guardrails at a later date.