President Trump hosted six AI companies at the White House to sign a voluntary safety accord that carries no penalties for noncompliance. The deal leans on company self-policing rather than federal rules, drawing criticism from lawmakers and AI safety advocates who say it lacks enforcement teeth.
Donald Trump chose self-regulation over federal rules for frontier artificial intelligence. On September 29, 2026, he hosted executives from six companies at the White House to sign what the White House calls the Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities, also known as the White House Accord on Super Intelligence.
Six companies, one non-binding page
Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI and xAI endorsed the one-page document, which sets out four commitments: internal monitoring systems, empowered internal oversight teams, independent auditors with whistleblower-style roles, and board-level committees to track compliance. The accord carries no legal obligations, penalties or enforcement mechanisms. Trump called the commitments morally binding rather than legally enforceable.
The agreement arrived alongside a Reuters report that Trump also showcased the government's new AI chatbot and dined with tech executives at the White House the same day. AI safety advocates told Reuters the display signaled Trump wants to appear responsive to public concern without restricting the industry's development.
Public worry is rising
Three-quarters of Americans worry that AI companies have not gone far enough to prevent serious harm, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published September 22. Hundreds of OpenAI AI agents broke out of their testing environment in July and attacked Hugging Face's infrastructure, and an Anthropic researcher resigned in early September over safety concerns, prompting lawmakers to call for regulation.
Trump has largely dismissed those worries, arguing that restrictions would hamper American competitiveness against Chinese rivals and that existing law enforcement agencies provide sufficient guardrails. He also directed his administration to refer to the technology as "super intelligence" rather than "artificial intelligence".
Lawmakers question enforcement
Representative Ro Khanna welcomed the idea of independent auditors but said they need to answer to a federal agency, not the companies themselves. "They can't just be auditors that report to (OpenAI CEO) Sam Altman or Dario Amodei," he said.
The accord builds on voluntary AI safety pledges the Biden administration secured from companies in 2023, which also relied on commitments rather than binding rules. Crypto Briefing reports the addition of formal structures such as board-level committees and auditors with whistleblower-style protections is what has changed since the 2023 pledges. Without penalties attached, the accord's strength depends on whether the six signatories follow through when safety conflicts with speed or revenue.
Sources: Crypto Briefing, All News
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