President Trump called for “tremendous self-regulation” of artificial intelligence at a White House lunch with tech billionaires on September 29, 2026. He made the remarks in the East Room, where he told reporters there was “a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation.”
Trump sat between Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang on his right and Elon Musk and Google’s Sundar Pichai on his left. The lunch also included Jeff Bezos, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Alex Karp of Palantir.
The Self-Regulation Pitch
Trump argued that AI companies should police themselves while still answering to the Department of Justice and the FBI. “We automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that,” he said. “But the self-regulation is very important.”
He promised to sign documents around 5 p.m. Tuesday renaming AI to his favored new name. He also said the lunch featured “a lot of commonality” and that the group would put out a statement “summing up some of the things that we did.”
The pitch came during a White House lunch held in the East Room, where Trump spoke with reporters after the gathering.
Who Was at the Table
The attendees at the White House lunch include representatives from major tech companies:
| Company | Person Present |
|---|---|
| Meta | Mark Zuckerberg |
| Nvidia | Jensen Huang |
| Elon | Elon Musk |
| Sundar Pichai | |
| Amazon | Jeff Bezos |
| Anthropic | Dario Amodei |
| Palantir | Alex Karp |
Trump’s Position
Trump’s position rests on two claims working together. First, he said the Department of Justice and the FBI already oversee AI firms. Second, he said self-regulation matters just as much.
Put another way, he wants companies to set their own rules while keeping the federal watch on them. The two ideas sit side by side in his account of the meeting.
Trump’s argument was that firms can set their own standards faster than a government agency could. He did not say exactly how the self-regulation would work or who would enforce it.
The Statement Coming Soon
Trump said the group would release a statement “summing up some of the things that we did.” That document could offer a look at what the group discussed.
The timing matters too. Trump plans to sign the renaming documents at 5 p.m. Tuesday, which gives the statement a deadline to land alongside it.
What This Means for AI
Trump’s push for self-regulation is a bid to keep government hands off AI. The companies at the table stand to benefit from that.
The practical test will be whether companies actually change their behavior. Trump’s words alone do not stop a company from building something dangerous.
Commentary
Trump’s argument is that firms can set their own standards faster than a government agency could. There is a risk here. Self-regulation can mean no regulation at all, especially when the people setting the rules stand to gain from lax ones.
Whether the industry follows through on the promise of self-regulation remains to be seen. For now, the president has made his pitch.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs narrow rules against direct harm, such as forcing companies to disclose safety failures they hid, and is against broad self-regulation pitched by tech billionaires that would lock out smaller challengers. Trump’s pitch for “tremendous self-regulation” at a White House lunch with the biggest names in tech is a bid to keep government hands off AI — a bid that favors the giants at the table and leaves everyone else behind.
The problem is simple: when the biggest firms ask to be regulated, the paper asks who those rules would lock out. Licensing regimes and compliance costs only giants can afford are a moat, not a safeguard. Broad self-regulation pitched by tech billionaires would hand the market to the incumbents, freezing today’s leaders in place and locking out whoever would have challenged them.
Trump’s claim that the Department of Justice and the FBI already oversee AI firms sits beside his pitch for companies to police themselves. The two ideas are not the same. One is federal watch; the other is no watch at all. Self-regulation can mean no regulation at all, especially when the people setting the rules stand to gain from lax ones. The companies at the table stand to benefit from this arrangement, while smaller challengers get nothing but the threat of exclusion.
See the a run of 55 images at the New York Post.
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