Trump Criticized Over AI Inaction

PHOTO CAPTION: FILE PHOTO: CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th US President in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. Saul Loeb/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 — Democrats and some of President Donald Trump’s conservative supporters are blaming his ties to the technology industry for what they describe as his administration’s limited response to recent hacking incidents involving AI agents developed by OpenAI and Anthropic.

Two weeks ago, OpenAI disclosed that one of its AI agents had gone rogue and broken into the systems of AI company Hugging Face. The White House said it was monitoring the situation, while Trump said he was considering controls on AI. Anthropic also said it had discovered that some of its AI models had hacked into the systems of three companies.

Steve Bannon, a conservative media figure and longtime Trump ally and former adviser, said the administration’s regulation of AI has been inadequate given the national security threat the technology could pose. He blamed what he described as Silicon Valley’s close relationship with the administration.

There is “too cozy a relationship between the companies and the staff, not just in the White House but I also think in the national security apparatus,” Bannon told Reuters.

“Why would you allow them to be in control? You don’t. And I’m the anti-deep state, anti-administrative state guy, but you definitely need at least a rudimentary framework of some sort of regulatory apparatus” to regulate AI, he said.

Democratic U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon raised similar concerns, saying Trump had been “AWOL” because he believes the billionaire owners of AI companies support him. Wyden accused Trump and his Republican allies of focusing on blocking state AI laws and weakening protections companies such as Anthropic have placed on how their models are used.

Anthropic’s relationship with the U.S. government ruptured earlier this year after the company refused to allow the military to use its AI models for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons systems. The White House and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment, while an Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment.

Bannon and Wyden are among a small group of voices across the political spectrum arguing that Trump’s relationships with major technology companies could discourage his administration from taking stronger action on AI risks.

Donations and administration ties

Technology companies and their executives donated more than $300 million to support Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign and MAGA Inc., a political action committee aligned with the president. Trump has also appointed technology industry insiders to senior administration positions.

In June, the administration said it would ask developers including OpenAI and Anthropic to voluntarily submit AI models with advanced hacking capabilities for government cybersecurity testing before releasing them to the public. It has not released details about how the tests would work, and Reuters previously reported that only a small number of models would be covered.

Democratic U.S. Representative Gregorio Casar of Texas said Trump was “completely failing” to protect Americans from AI-related dangers.

“He took millions from AI billionaires. Now, in the wake of extremely dangerous AI cybersecurity problems, he says he’s set up ‘voluntary’ review that no one has seen,” Casar wrote on X. “Asleep at the wheel. Too busy cashing in to protect our jobs or national security.”

AI executives and investors were among the largest individual donors to MAGA Inc. in 2025. OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna Brockman, gave a combined $25 million to the committee, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, an investor in OpenAI, and its co-founders Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen gave a combined $12 million after Trump’s second inauguration. The firm, its co-founders and the Brockmans did not respond to requests for comment.

Google investor Asha Jadeja, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman each gave at least $5 million to the committee in 2025, according to FEC records. Blackstone invests in AI infrastructure, including an AI cloud venture with Google, one of the three leading U.S. AI developers. Jadeja, Musk, Schwarzman and Blackstone did not respond to requests for comment.

Amy Kremer, a right-wing organizer and Trump supporter who helped organize the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot, accused the technology industry of building “a moat around the White House.”

Trump also brought several industry figures into his administration, most notably Musk, who oversaw the president’s cuts to the federal workforce during the first few months of his second term. Musk spent more than $250 million to help Trump win the 2024 election, according to campaign filings reviewed by Reuters.

Trump appointed Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks as White House AI czar and brought Andreessen Horowitz’s Sriram Krishnan and Scale AI’s Michael Kratsios into the administration. Sacks and Krishnan have since left the administration, although Sacks remains an outside White House technology adviser.

Debate over AI regulation

Sacks has advocated for a hands-off approach to AI regulation, arguing that new rules would slow the U.S. industry in its competition with China. The administration has also tried to persuade Congress to restrict state-level AI regulations, an idea the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly rejected.

Krishnan, Kratsios and Sacks did not respond to requests for comment.

(Source: Reuters)