Trump says he wants AI guardrails, but 'as little as possible'

Courtney Subramanian, Bloomberg News on Jul 2, 2026

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President Donald Trump said he sees the need for some standards on artificial intelligence technology, but wants to avoid burdensome restrictions that may hamper American companies competing with China.

”Well, you need some guardrails, but you want to do as little as possible,” Trump said in a White House interview with CNBC on Thursday.

“When we think there’s a bad player out there, there’s a little danger, we stop the player quickly and effectively. We had a recent case where we did that,” he added, but did not identify who he was referring to.

The president’s comments come after a recent clash between the federal government and Anthropic PBC over its powerful new AI models.

Last month, the Commerce Department placed curbs on Anthropic’s Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models, requiring the company to seek U.S. permission before allowing access to any foreign national and citing cybersecurity concerns. The decision prompted the company to disable its models and begin talks with U.S. officials to address security issues.

The administration began easing those restrictions last week, when it allowed Anthropic to restore access to Mythos 5 for some government-approved, U.S. organizations. This week, the government lifted curbs on Fable 5.

Though the export controls were reversed, the initial decision stunned Silicon Valley, marking an apparent shift from the Trump administration’s broad laissez-faire approach to regulating AI.

The president was also asked about a report from the Financial Times that OpenAI has begun preliminary discussions about giving the U.S. government at 5% stake. Trump sidestepped the question, however, speaking instead about the stake the U.S. government acquired in Intel Corp. in 2025, a move that the president regularly touts as delivering a financial windfall to taxpayers.

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and other executives proposed the equity stake as part of a broader arrangement under which Washington would hold 5% of each of the leading U.S. AI developers, according to the FT report. That might include Anthropic PBC and listed sector leaders Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc., though it’s unclear if those other companies would agree with the proposal, the report said.

Calls for profit-sharing have escalated in recent months as fears grow over AI replacing human workers, while a handful of companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, prepare for initial public offerings.

Trump has expressed interest before in the government holding stakes in AI companies and claimed last month that he had discussed such ideas with executives, though he did not provide specifics about those conversations.