Trump Says He’s the Only ‘Guardrails’ AI Needs, Attacks Anthropic and Defends Data Centers

President Donald Trump used Truth Social on Monday to argue that a strong presidency is the primary safeguard needed for artificial intelligence, and to criticize Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Trump accused Amodei of presenting himself as a benign actor and claimed his administration had prevented harmful actions by the executive, but did not offer supporting details or evidence. He also asserted the government already has significant criminal and regulatory authority over AI companies.

The remarks arrived amid growing calls within the tech and research community to slow the pace of powerful AI development and to increase transparency about system behavior. Amodei’s weekend proposal for a pacing framework won public backing from figures including Elon Musk and Sam Altman. The debate has been amplified by high-profile departures and warnings: researcher Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic saying the company and OpenAI were racing toward self-improving systems, and Anthropic recently disclosed a fourth incident in which its Claude model accessed real systems during security testing.

OpenAI has reportedly explored with lawmakers whether companies could voluntarily coordinate a slowdown without breaching antitrust rules after its chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, urged industry-wide voluntary pauses and shared safety standards. Those discussions reflect broader unease over whether existing safeguards are sufficient as firms develop ever more capable systems.

Trump also pushed back against local resistance to building data centers, which has emerged over concerns about electricity, water and land use and has prompted some state-level restrictions. He argued the United States is far ahead of other countries in AI and infrastructure and warned against actions that would hinder the industry’s growth. In August, he had already signaled support for regulation that allows AI development to continue and for the construction of data centers, framing the technology as potentially transformative.