Trump calls Sundar Pichai a 'monster' at White House event, Google CEO quips back

Trump calls Sundar Pichai a 'monster', Google CEO responds with a witty quip

US president Donald Trump appeared to jokingly describe Google CEO Sundar Pichai as a “monster” during an event, before clarifying that he was referring to Pichai’s stature and success.As Pichai began speaking, Trump said, “This guy is a monster, and nobody knows him. What a great life! To be a MONSTER and not have to go through this. All you have to know is — SUNDARR! Sundar is his name.”Pichai replied, “Hopefully a better tagline than I'm a monster!”This comes as US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he and a group of leading artificial intelligence company executives had signed a voluntary accord that includes internal and external reviews during a White House meeting aimed at addressing concerns over the technology.“I think I'm seeing tremendous self-policing. And they understand that they have to self-police,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu press conference outside the West Wing.Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson met with executives from major technology companies that are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure, including data centres across the country. The projects have faced grassroots opposition from both Republicans and Democrats.

The accord was signed by Trump, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Elon Musk, founder of xAI, which is now part of SpaceX.Posted by Trump on Truth Social late Tuesday, the accord leaves open the possibility of future regulation while outlining four voluntary steps for the companies. It calls for “robust internal controls”, cooperation with an “independent external auditor” to assess those controls, and the creation of a committee within each company’s board to review reports from internal and external auditors.“Over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws and regulations,” the accord said.Trump praised the executives for developing a technology he said would deliver “unbelievable growth”, while highlighting the economic impact of investment in data centres and related computer equipment.Amodei, who has been among the most outspoken voices calling for a slowdown in AI development, struck a more cautious note, saying, “The technology has very real risks.”"And, you know, the mechanism, how we address those risks is still under discussion,” Amodei said.