Trump Rejects New Federal AI Safety Regulations After White House Tech Meeting

The decision signals that federal AI governance in the United States will continue to rely on voluntary industry commitments rather than binding rules, at least for the duration of the current...

President Donald Trump declined to pursue new federal safety regulations for artificial intelligence following a meeting at the White House with technology industry leaders, according to a Bloomberg report published September 30, 2026. The announcement reinforces a policy direction the administration has maintained since taking office: that the federal government should not impose new binding requirements on AI development at this time.

The White House meeting brought together technology executives and administration officials to discuss the trajectory of artificial intelligence development. The identities of the specific technology leaders in attendance were not disclosed in the Bloomberg report. A full participant list would be contained in White House visitor logs, which are released on a periodic public schedule by the Executive Office of the President.

Trump's rejection of new AI safety rules is consistent with the administration's broader regulatory posture. In January 2025, one of the administration's first executive actions revoked a Biden-era executive order on AI safety issued in October 2023, which had required developers of large AI systems to share safety test results with the federal government before public deployment. That revocation was published in the Federal Register and is part of the public executive order record.

The current administration has instead emphasized voluntary commitments from the private sector. The White House has pointed to agreements from major AI developers to submit their systems to third-party evaluations as sufficient oversight. Whether those voluntary agreements are legally enforceable or subject to public audit has not been established in any published federal document.

Congress has not passed comprehensive AI safety legislation as of September 30, 2026. Multiple bills have been introduced in both chambers during the 119th Congress addressing AI transparency, liability, and national security applications, but none has cleared both the House and Senate. The Congressional Record shows committee hearings on AI legislation in the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee, though no floor vote has been scheduled in either chamber.

The administration's position places the United States at a different regulatory posture than the European Union, which enacted the EU AI Act in 2024. That law created tiered compliance requirements based on assessed risk levels of AI systems. U.S.-based companies operating in Europe are subject to those requirements regardless of domestic U.S. Policy, a fact that technology industry lobbying disclosures filed with the Senate Office of Public Records have cited as a cost consideration in recent quarters.

Critics of the deregulatory approach, including several Democratic members of the Senate Commerce Committee, have argued in public statements entered into the Congressional Record that without federal baseline rules, safety standards will vary by company and no public accountability mechanism exists. Supporters of the administration's approach, including Republican members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, have argued in the same record that regulation could slow U.S. Competitiveness relative to China in AI development.

The lobbying footprint around AI policy is substantial. According to Lobbying Disclosure Act filings compiled through the Senate Office of Public Records, technology companies and trade associations reported spending more than $100 million on federal lobbying across all issues in 2025, with AI governance listed as a specific issue area by dozens of registrants. The precise amount attributable solely to AI safety regulation lobbying is not broken out in current LDA filing categories and would require individual disclosure review to calculate.

For context on the administration's stated affirmative AI agenda, the White House has separately described AI as a governing tool and outlined plans related to what it has termed superintelligence development. The Congressional Times covered those statements in Trump Cites AI as Governing Tool, Previews Superintelligence Plans.

What remains unknown is the specific content of the discussions between Trump and the technology executives at the September 30 meeting, including whether any voluntary commitments were made or renewed. The White House visitor logs for that date, once released, would identify attendees. A formal written policy statement or executive order, if one is issued, would appear in the Federal Register.