Vice President JD Vance publicly questioned why the biggest names in artificial intelligence are asking the federal government to regulate them, calling the effort "a bit of a Trojan horse" that could stifle American competitiveness.
Vance made the remarks Monday at Joint Base Andrews before departing for events in the Kansas City area. Speaking to reporters, he singled out the growing chorus of AI executives, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk, who have called for greater government oversight and a slower pace of development, the New York Post reported.
His skepticism carries weight. Vance is not a casual observer of the technology sector; he spent years in Silicon Valley venture capital before entering politics, and the Trump administration has positioned itself as aggressively pro-AI development. The vice president's blunt framing suggests the White House sees industry-led regulation demands not as good-faith safety advocacy but as a competitive play by incumbents to lock out smaller rivals.
Vance did not mince words at Joint Base Andrews. He attributed to Fox News confirmed that the administration is "concerned" about the speed of frontier AI model development, but drew a sharp line between genuine caution and what he sees as self-serving corporate lobbying.
"I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a trojan horse."
That framing, regulation as a weapon wielded by market leaders to cement their dominance, is a familiar concern in conservative economic thinking. Companies with billions in infrastructure and talent can absorb compliance costs that would crush a startup. If the government writes rules at the request of Anthropic and OpenAI, those rules may conveniently favor Anthropic and OpenAI.
Vance also indicated the administration would prefer to "regulate smartly," weighing both the benefits and risks of AI rather than imposing blanket slowdowns, the Washington Examiner reported.
The vice president's stance tracks with remarks he delivered earlier this year at the Global AI Action Summit in Paris, where he told world leaders that AI "will make our workers more productive" and that the most immediate applications "almost all involve supplementing, not replacing, the work being done by Americans now." That speech signaled the administration views AI primarily as an engine of wage growth and national strength, not a crisis demanding heavy-handed federal intervention.
President Trump reinforced Vance's posture Monday with a pair of posts on Truth Social. In the first, he dismissed calls for new guardrails in characteristically direct fashion:
"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!"
A second post went further, asserting the government already holds sufficient authority over AI companies and alleging outside interference in the sector:
"We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! 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! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!"
Trump did not specify the conspiracy he referenced or name individuals involved. But the geopolitical framing, AI as a race against China, is one the president has returned to repeatedly. And it is not a framing unique to the White House.
Vance's growing political profile extends well beyond tech policy. He has built a commanding lead in the 2028 GOP field, with potential rivals already stepping aside, making his policy positions on issues like AI carry additional weight as markers of the party's future direction.
Speaker Mike Johnson, appearing on CNN Sunday, struck a tone that split the difference between the White House's deregulatory instinct and the tech industry's safety warnings. Johnson said Congress has already put AI guardrails in place, though he did not name specific legislation, and acknowledged a corporate duty to ensure safe products.
"There is an obvious corporate responsibility that the people who are creating these models have to ensure that their products are safe."
But Johnson quickly pivoted to the competition argument, warning that pausing American AI development would hand the advantage to Beijing:
"We cannot put a moratorium on this because China will overlap us, and that's the challenge. It's national security balanced with the immediate security of making sure the models are safe."
The speaker's comments land at a moment when Congress has almost no runway to act. The House is in session only the current week. The Senate sits for one additional week after that. Then lawmakers scatter to the campaign trail until after November's election. Any serious AI legislation would have to wait, a timeline that suits an administration content with the status quo.
Even figures outside the conservative orbit have taken notice of Vance's rising stature. Bill Maher recently told Vance his 2028 vote is up for grabs, a sign that the vice president's pragmatic positioning on issues like technology resonates beyond the Republican base.
On the other side of the aisle, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has called for an all-senators classified briefing from the administration on how it plans to handle rapidly evolving AI technology. No date for that briefing has been announced, and it remains unclear whether the White House has responded to the request.
Former President Barack Obama, meanwhile, urged Democrats to seize AI as an election-year issue. Speaking at a closed-door Democratic fundraiser in New York last week, remarks reported by the New York Times, Obama warned that the technology is outpacing government's ability to manage it.
"This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don't get on top of it, I think can be dangerous."
Obama also pushed Democrats to "have a very clear plan" for responding to safety and economic concerns around AI. His intervention signals that the party's leadership sees the issue as politically potent heading into November, a chance to cast the administration as reckless with a technology that could reshape the labor market.
The stakes are not hypothetical. Anthropic's own researchers have warned that AI could pose an existential threat to humanity by 2030, a claim dramatic enough to fuel the very regulation push that Vance now questions. The specific researchers and the forum in which they issued that warning were not identified in available reporting.
Vance's willingness to challenge powerful tech executives has drawn attention from unexpected quarters. Joy Behar of "The View" recently told Vance he should run for president, before explaining at length why she would never vote for him, underscoring how his directness has made him a figure even his critics find difficult to dismiss.
The core tension Vance identified Monday is not new, but it rarely gets stated this plainly by a sitting vice president. When the largest companies in an industry ask the government to impose new rules, the question is always the same: who benefits?
Regulation drafted at the behest of Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind would inevitably reflect the capabilities, resources, and business models of those firms. Smaller competitors and open-source developers, the very actors most likely to disrupt the market, would bear the heaviest burden. Vance's "Trojan horse" label puts a name on that dynamic.
It also puts the administration on a clear footing heading into an election season where AI will feature prominently. Democrats want more federal control. The White House says existing authority is enough. And the tech executives caught in the middle are learning that asking Washington for help may invite more scrutiny than they bargained for.
On a personal note, Vance's public schedule has been full in recent months, from policy summits abroad to welcoming his fourth child with wife Usha. Monday's remarks at Joint Base Andrews showed a vice president comfortable stepping into the sharpest policy fights of the moment and framing them on his own terms.
When billion-dollar companies beg the government to tie their hands, the rest of us ought to ask what they're really holding behind their backs.
