President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he and a group of top artificial intelligence executives signed a voluntary accord at the White House that calls on companies to police their own safety practices. The document, signed during a meeting in Washington, included commitments to internal controls, outside audits and board-level oversight, according to Trump and the text he later posted online.
Trump described the agreement as “morally binding” after the meeting and said it was meant to address public fears about fast-moving AI systems. The event brought some of the industry’s biggest figures to the White House at a time when the administration is resisting new AI-specific restrictions while pressure for tougher oversight is growing.
The accord puts safety steps in writing
According to the Associated Press, 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, now part of SpaceX. Trump said the companies agreed to a voluntary framework that includes internal and external reviews.
The accord says companies would implement “robust internal controls,” work with an “independent external auditor” to test whether those controls are working, and create a committee within each company’s board of directors to review reports from both internal and external auditors. The text also says that, over time, it may make sense to turn those steps into laws and regulations.
Reuters reported that Trump likened the document to a constitution, telling reporters, “It’s almost like a Constitution in a way, and the biggest people in the world signed that and I signed it as president and it really is a form of protection.” He also said the accord was “morally binding” and that his administration was considering a committee of about 10 people to “watch over the whole enterprise.”
The White House meeting matters beyond Washington because the same companies are spending heavily on AI infrastructure, including data centers in communities across the country. The Associated Press reported that Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson met with executives from firms investing hundreds of billions of dollars in that buildout, a push that has triggered bipartisan opposition in some local communities.
What is not yet clear is whether Tuesday’s accord changes any specific project, permitting fight or oversight process in any one state or city. The White House had not, in the reports available Tuesday, announced state-by-state enforcement steps, local reporting requirements or any binding federal standards tied to the agreement.
Trump said the executives had also agreed to help calm opposition to new data centers by offering more financial support to local schools or by taking steps to reduce energy costs, according to the Associated Press. But the administration had not released a local list of affected communities or a timetable for those steps as of Tuesday.
Trump has argued that the United States should not slow AI development with new rules. Earlier Tuesday, he said the government would not support “guardrails” or other restrictions that could limit the technology’s growth, according to the Associated Press. Reuters also noted that Trump told world leaders at the United Nations last week that he rejects efforts to build what he called a global scheme to control AI.
At the same time, some of the executives involved have publicly warned that the technology carries serious risks. Amodei said after the White House meeting, “The technology has very real risks,” and added that the mechanism for addressing those risks is still being debated, according to the Associated Press.
Experts quoted by the Associated Press split on the White House approach. University of Southern California professor Shri Narayanan said the accord tries to balance room for innovation with safety work. Robin Jia, also at USC, said he was skeptical of putting so much faith in self-policing. For now, what comes next is the administration’s promised follow-up on oversight, including Trump’s statement that he expects to name someone to oversee the agreement in the coming days.