Trump scraps AI cybersecurity executive order citing innovation concerns

President Trump scrapped the signing of an executive order that was expected to lay out partnerships with leading AI companies to vet cutting-edge models, citing concerns about maintaining competitive advantage over China.

Objective Facts

President Trump scrapped the signing of an executive order that was expected to lay out partnerships with leading AI companies to vet cutting-edge models. Trump called off the signing of a new executive order on artificial intelligence hours before an expected White House ceremony Thursday because he said he was worried the measure could dull America's edge on AI technology. The order would direct several groups — including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the White House's Office of the National Cyber Director, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy — to establish methods to determine which AI models should fall under the new voluntary testing regime and create a new framework for the government to access and evaluate yet-to-be-released models in conjunction with leading AI companies. Eleventh-hour phone calls with industry leaders and former AI and crypto czar David Sacks helped persuade President Donald Trump not to sign the order. The order's timing reflected Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs in April, warning them about the cybersecurity risks posed by Anthropic's AI model, Claude Mythos.

Left-Leaning Perspective

Those who have been pushing for AI regulation in Washington were relieved that the White House was finally going to make moves on AI and cybersecurity safety, but now it's not clear when — or whether — that is going to happen. Regulatory advocates, including former government cybersecurity experts and academic researchers, pointed to the urgency of the cybersecurity threat. Vinh Nguyen, a former NSA cyber and AI expert who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said evaluating these systems for cyber-risks "isn't trivial." Helen Toner, interim director of Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a former OpenAI board member, said the government should be building its own technical expertise now in preparation, with the approach needing to be flexible and adapt to how these systems are changing. Left-leaning coverage emphasized the broader vulnerability created by relying entirely on voluntary company compliance. As one analyst noted, until the order existed, the only oversight was the kind labs volunteer for, with Anthropic's caution and voluntary CAISI deals being the actual policy depending entirely on companies choosing restraint, working only because the most dangerous models are still mostly unreleased—described as a thin thread to hang national cybersecurity on.

Right-Leaning Perspective

Before the order was to be signed, Trump, AI adviser David Sacks and some in industry discussed it, with the main reason the signing was delayed being that Trump "just hates regulation," with Sacks also "hating it," and the source describing the order as "just something doomers wanted". Tech industry supporters such as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and former Trump adviser David Sacks are resistant to mandatory requirements, with Sacks stepping down from his role as Trump's lead AI official in March and now co-chairing the president's tech advisory committee. Right-leaning and tech-aligned voices characterized the order as an unnecessary burden on innovation. Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, which has advocated for a voluntary approach to government evaluations of AI, said the administration appeared to have found an appropriately tailored response, describing it as directed toward a very specific type of harm with a pretty moderate approach, not a gatekeeping or licensing arrangement like an FDA-style regime. Conservative voices emphasized that the accelerationists have won out, viewing the postponement as a victory for innovation.

Deep Dive

The order's planned debut would have come less than two months after AI company Anthropic's Mythos Preview model demonstrated the novel ability to autonomously discover thousands of severe and critical cyber vulnerabilities, including in leading operating systems and web browsers, prompting Vice President JD Vance to say the administration was prioritizing "protecting people's data" and "people's privacy," warning that "a bad actor could use Mythos to target various cybersecurity vulnerabilities." This urgency had prompted Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to meet with major U.S. bank CEOs to discuss the cyber risks raised by Anthropic's Mythos model, with the surprise meeting signaling that the advanced capabilities of AI are a top concern and could threaten the foundation of the U.S. financial system. The order itself represented an attempt at a middle path: The order would direct federal groups to establish methods to determine which AI models should fall under a new voluntary testing regime, and it was described by Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, as directed toward a very specific type of harm with a pretty moderate approach—not a gatekeeping or licensing arrangement like an FDA-style regime. Yet even this minimal approach faced defeat. Eleventh-hour phone calls with industry leaders and former AI and crypto czar David Sacks helped persuade Trump not to sign, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, xAI CEO Elon Musk and Sacks all speaking with Trump between Wednesday night and Thursday morning. The crux of disagreement reveals competing national security frameworks. Left-leaning experts argue that Trump didn't want a blocker, but the question left unanswered is what happens the first time a frontier model becomes the threat the order was written to contain, and there is no order to point to. Right-aligned analysts counter that holding back new AI models while the government vets them may gain a short-term advantage over adversaries but will not keep the technology out of enemy hands in the long term, and that "we need to make sure we're deploying it and getting the most out of it, including by hardening our defenses". What remains unresolved is whether either cybersecurity vetting or unrestricted innovation actually serves national interests better—and whether the administration will revisit this decision if another Mythos-level capability emerges.

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Trump scraps AI cybersecurity executive order citing innovation concerns

President Trump scrapped the signing of an executive order that was expected to lay out partnerships with leading AI companies to vet cutting-edge models, citing concerns about maintaining competitive advantage over China.

May 22, 2026
What's Going On

President Trump scrapped the signing of an executive order that was expected to lay out partnerships with leading AI companies to vet cutting-edge models. Trump called off the signing of a new executive order on artificial intelligence hours before an expected White House ceremony Thursday because he said he was worried the measure could dull America's edge on AI technology. The order would direct several groups — including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the White House's Office of the National Cyber Director, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy — to establish methods to determine which AI models should fall under the new voluntary testing regime and create a new framework for the government to access and evaluate yet-to-be-released models in conjunction with leading AI companies. Eleventh-hour phone calls with industry leaders and former AI and crypto czar David Sacks helped persuade President Donald Trump not to sign the order. The order's timing reflected Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs in April, warning them about the cybersecurity risks posed by Anthropic's AI model, Claude Mythos.

Left says: Those who have been pushing for AI regulation in Washington were relieved that the White House was finally going to make moves on AI and cybersecurity safety, but now it's not clear when — or whether — that is going to happen.
Right says: Trump's advisers and allied tech leaders viewed the order as "just something doomers wanted" and unnecessary.
✓ Common Ground
The push for some kind of government action to review leading AI systems follows growing concern within the banking industry and other institutions about the leaps in AI's abilities to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world's software, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell convening an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs in April—both sides acknowledge the real cybersecurity threat that Anthropic's Mythos raised.
Tech companies have been broadly supportive of AI model testing and guardrails, with leading frontier models already doing voluntary testing through NIST's Center for AI Standards and Innovation—both sides appear comfortable with the voluntary testing framework that already existed.
Several voices across the spectrum noted that the disagreements likely represent "healthy tension" in an administration that has long been wary of regulating the "frontier AI" companies like Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, suggesting tension rather than outright hostility on either extreme.
Objective Deep Dive

The order's planned debut would have come less than two months after AI company Anthropic's Mythos Preview model demonstrated the novel ability to autonomously discover thousands of severe and critical cyber vulnerabilities, including in leading operating systems and web browsers, prompting Vice President JD Vance to say the administration was prioritizing "protecting people's data" and "people's privacy," warning that "a bad actor could use Mythos to target various cybersecurity vulnerabilities." This urgency had prompted Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to meet with major U.S. bank CEOs to discuss the cyber risks raised by Anthropic's Mythos model, with the surprise meeting signaling that the advanced capabilities of AI are a top concern and could threaten the foundation of the U.S. financial system.

The order itself represented an attempt at a middle path: The order would direct federal groups to establish methods to determine which AI models should fall under a new voluntary testing regime, and it was described by Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, as directed toward a very specific type of harm with a pretty moderate approach—not a gatekeeping or licensing arrangement like an FDA-style regime. Yet even this minimal approach faced defeat. Eleventh-hour phone calls with industry leaders and former AI and crypto czar David Sacks helped persuade Trump not to sign, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, xAI CEO Elon Musk and Sacks all speaking with Trump between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

The crux of disagreement reveals competing national security frameworks. Left-leaning experts argue that Trump didn't want a blocker, but the question left unanswered is what happens the first time a frontier model becomes the threat the order was written to contain, and there is no order to point to. Right-aligned analysts counter that holding back new AI models while the government vets them may gain a short-term advantage over adversaries but will not keep the technology out of enemy hands in the long term, and that "we need to make sure we're deploying it and getting the most out of it, including by hardening our defenses". What remains unresolved is whether either cybersecurity vetting or unrestricted innovation actually serves national interests better—and whether the administration will revisit this decision if another Mythos-level capability emerges.

◈ Tone Comparison

Left-leaning coverage used language suggesting fragility and missed opportunity ("thin thread," government finally taking action), while right-leaning and tech-aligned sources employed dismissive framing ("doomers," "unnecessary"). Both sides framed the issue through their core values—security and regulation versus innovation and speed.