Trump Pushes Back on AI Slowdown Calls

On Sunday, September 13, 2026, President Donald Trump publicly rejected a high-profile call from the leaders of three major artificial intelligence companies to slow the pace of AI development. The Times of India, Yahoo News, and Cyprus Inform all reported the same day that Trump, speaking to reporters, dismissed the warnings as exaggerated and driven by bad actors. The trigger for Trump's remarks was a joint statement from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and xAI founder Elon Musk, all of whom publicly backed slowing frontier AI development over the weekend.

Trump's exact language closely matches the claim. Multiple outlets quote him as saying: "We could put guardrails. We can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up and they're bringing up things that won't happen." The phrase "very negative forces" appears verbatim in the Times of India and Cyprus Inform reports, confirming the wording in the original social media post. Yahoo News renders the same quote with "negative forces" (without "very"), but the substance is identical.

Trump framed his rejection around U.S.-China competition, telling reporters: "We're leading China in AI. We're the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins." This competitive framing was a central part of his response and was reported consistently across outlets. The BBC, reporting a day earlier on September 12, also noted that Trump had "so far rejected such fears," though that report referenced a Thursday statement rather than Sunday's fuller remarks.

The context behind the CEOs' call adds weight to the claim's significance. Amodei published an essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier" on Saturday, September 12, proposing a three-point plan that included independent monitoring of AI models, industry-wide regulation, and global coordination. His call was supported by Altman and Musk, and followed the public resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who warned of catastrophic risks. The convergence of these warnings from inside the AI industry made Trump's rejection a notable news event, not a routine policy comment.

All four sources align on the core facts: the date (Sunday, September 13, 2026), the actor (President Trump), the action (rejecting calls to slow AI), and the key phrase ("very negative forces"). There are no material contradictions between the outlets on the substance of the claim. Minor differences in how the quote is rendered (with or without "very") do not change the meaning. The claim is a faithful summary of what Trump actually said and the context in which he said it.