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The president seems driven chiefly by the sense that A.I. is the way to economic growth, and nothing can be allowed to stand in its way.
Sept. 18, 2026, 12:36 p.m. ET
President Trump made clear in the past week that he views fears that A.I. could lead to mass extinction as a “HOAX,” and that he sees opponents of data centers as people who “want to end up being backwards and poor.”
People who have discussed the subject with Mr. Trump in private say his outbursts are rooted in worries that if the artificial intelligence boom fueling the American economy slows down, the market could crash and recession could quickly follow.
His anti-regulatory, anti-slowdown outbursts have been encouraged by a slice of Silicon Valley’s most influential voices. Chief among them has been David Sacks, the venture capitalist who interceded to weaken an executive order in May that would have required safety reviews of new A.I. models. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jensen Huang of Nvidia have also spoken to the president. All have advised Mr. Trump that the bigger risk is being overtaken by Chinese competitors.
But inside the administration, the debate is far more complex, and there are other voices in Mr. Trump’s ear, urging caution.
The more cautious tone inside the White House reflects a growing concern that despite the strategic challenge posed by China, a summer of A.I. surprises has raised the prospect of risks that were often dismissed a year ago as the wild talk of “doomers.”
Now, even the biggest A.I. boosters in the administration concede that A.I.-fueled hacks into infrastructure, biological threats, attacks on nuclear command-and-control systems, job losses and global financial instability seem more possible than they did before A.I. agents went rogue.
