Trump to host Anthropic's Amodei, Nvidia's Huang, other AI execs, as fears mount

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will meet on Tuesday (Sep 29) with tech executives including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai and Anthropic's Dario Amodei to discuss artificial intelligence, as calls ramp up for more regulation of the fast-developing technology.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI President Greg Brockman are also expected to attend, according to separate people familiar with the planning. US House Speaker Mike Johnson will also be there, as will Palantir's Alex Karp, according to a company spokesperson. Trump tech adviser Michael Kratsios will be in the room, according to an administration official.

Trump will meet with the executives weeks after OpenAI and Anthropic reported their AI agents had gone rogue and hacked into customers' systems without instructions to do so. The intrusions prompted researchers to warn that some AI developers believe the technology could kill humans within a decade, fueling calls for action from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

The Tuesday gathering will focus on finding a balance between innovation and oversight, Republican Johnson said on Monday, as concerns about rogue AI agents' potential to harm humans have seeped into the public consciousness, boosting calls for regulation. Trump has called the fears of AI's threat to humanity a "hoax".

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the goals or topics for the meeting.

Trump has repeatedly downplayed concerns about AI, stressing the importance of maintaining the country's competitive edge over China and pointing to the Justice Department as a pre-existing guardrail for AI. Johnson echoed those sentiments in an interview with Fox Business Network on Monday.

"We do not need a moratorium. We do not need to jump in and hyper-regulate this, because we'll lose the race to China," he said. "The innovation is important to continue, but we have to strike the ​right balance. That's what the conversation is going to be about."

But a nationwide Reuters/Ipsos poll from Sep 17 to 20 shows some 73 per cent of respondents worry that AI companies haven't done enough to prevent AI from causing serious harm to society, and 55 per cent of people said it would be good to slow AI development. 

Anthropic's Amodei has been vocal about the threat of AI, telling the UN Security Council on Sep 23 that if managed poorly, "AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole." That warning resurfaced in the company's IPO prospectus, Reuters reported on Monday, even as Anthropic seeks a US$2 trillion valuation for a technology that it says could outstrip industrialisation in terms of its imprint on the global economy.

Under an executive order signed by Trump in June, AI developers are asked to voluntarily submit "covered ​frontier models" to the US government for review up to 30 days before releasing them to trusted ​partners.

Before the meeting, Trump will speak at an event unveiling a new America.gov website with tech CEOs and Vice President JD Vance in attendance. 

The meeting also comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the White House last week for talks with Trump that revealed divergent views on AI. While Trump on social media insisted Xi agreed with his plan to "leave it exactly where it is", Xi appeared to favour a more hands-on approach. 

“We have both the capability and responsibility ​to develop and manage AI for good, and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people,” Xi said.