Trump Puts Brakes on AI Security Executive Order Over Concerns It Could Slow US Lead
President Donald Trump has put the brakes on signing a Trump AI security executive order that would have given the federal government the power to review and evaluate AI models before they are publicly released.
Speaking to the White House press pool, Trump made his position clear: “I didn’t like certain aspects of it. We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that leading.” The delay signals growing tension between the administration’s desire to dominate the global AI race and its push to better secure increasingly powerful AI systems.
According to multiple reports from Axios and journalist Alex Heath, an unofficial reason for the delay was that not enough tech CEOs were able to travel to Washington, D.C. on short notice suggesting the signing was always as much about optics as policy.
The proposed executive order would have directed the Office of the National Cyber Director alongside other federal agencies to build a formal process for evaluating AI models on security grounds before release. The urgency behind the order was partly driven by the emergence of Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 Cyber, both of which have demonstrated the ability to rapidly identify and exploit security vulnerabilities.
A key sticking point, as reported by CNN, was a requirement that AI companies share advanced models with the government anywhere between 14 and 90 days before their public launch a provision that industry players have pushed back on as burdensome.
Trump acknowledged the concern directly, saying the language in the Trump AI security executive order “could have been a blocker.” For now, the order is on hold, with no confirmed timeline for when, or whether, a revised version will be signed.
