After President Trump abruptly canceled plans to sign an executive order on AI at the last minute on Thursday, multiple stories are unanimous on the reason: It seems the tech industry hated it, and it didn't take much to sway a president who's not a fan of regulation in general. In the hours before the planned Oval Office signing, Trump got an earful from White House tech adviser David Sacks about objections to the order, reports the Washington Post, Politico, and Axios. He also spoke with Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
The draft order, developed over weeks with heavy industry input, envisioned a voluntary process: Companies would give the government early access—up to 90 days before public release—to powerful new AI models so agencies could investigate for security flaws and dangerous capabilities. But it was "just something doomers wanted," a source tells Axios. The order explicitly disavowed any formal licensing or preclearance regime. Even so, Sacks and others warned Trump that in practice it could become a de facto regulatory system that would handicap US firms in a race with China.
Sacks reportedly began raising concerns Wednesday night that the voluntary process would morph into a mandatory one, a White House official told Politico on Thursday. "Then, he called POTUS this morning unbeknownst to anybody, his own staff included, and derailed it," the official says. The cancellation was so abrupt that some tech leaders were already en route to DC for the signing when they got word. The Post reports that the order is likely to be resurrected at some point, though it's not clear how drastic the changes will be.
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