Musk, Zuckerberg derail Trump AI order

Source: Semafor

Musk, Zuckerberg derail Trump AI order

May 21, 2026, 11:20pm EDT

The Trump administration’s plans for an executive order regulating artificial intelligence were put on hold this week after some of the tech industry’s biggest players, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and venture capitalist David Sacks, persuaded the White House to call it off, according to people familiar with the matter.

The push from industry was successful, these people said, because Musk and others were able to appeal to the accelerationist crowd, including officials at the National Economic Council and staffers in the vice president’s office.

The executive order would have created some oversight for powerful new AI models, but would not have created an official new licensing regime.

Meanwhile, OpenAI is making a push to enact regulations at the state level — and, according to people with knowledge of the matter, the White House has given the company a green light to pursue that strategy, despite an earlier executive order threatening states that pass unwelcome AI regulation.

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Read more: https://www.semafor.com/article/05/21/2026/elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-derail-trump-ai-order