Business Insider Trump's lunch with tech leaders like Elon Musk produced a "morally binding" safety accord, a new name for AI, and a handful of eye-catching moments.
- Trump hosted some of the biggest names in AI at the White House for lunch on Tuesday.
- At a press conference, he announced a safety accord and an official rebrand for AI in government.
- The gathering led to several memorable moments outside the White House.
President Donald Trump's White House lunch with some of the biggest names in tech came with some big moments.
It brought together a who's who of tech leaders — from Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — to discuss the future of AI and how to keep it safe.
It produced a voluntary agreement, an interesting exchange with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and a typo that critics quickly seized on.
Here are three of the most eye-catching moments.
Trump called the AI agreement 'morally binding' #
Trump said executives, including Google's Sundar Pichai and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, signed what he described as a kind of "constitution" for the industry.
When asked by a reporter if the accord was binding, Trump offered a qualifier: "I think it's morally binding."
The one-page White House Accord on Super Intelligence asks companies to build internal safety controls, have external auditors assess them, and submit the resulting reports for independent board review. It contains no legal enforcement mechanism.
Trump also said the companies would engage in "tremendous self-policing" and floated the idea of a committee of roughly 10 people to "watch over the whole enterprise."
Trump told Dario Amodei to 'be careful' — as Zuckerberg looked on #
One of the most talked-about clips from the post-lunch press gaggle came when Trump called Amodei forward.
Trump had previously criticized the Anthropic CEO over his calls for stronger AI safeguards and a slower pace of frontier development. On Tuesday, he praised Amodei, saying he had been "fantastic." Then, before the CEO spoke to the press, Trump added: "Whatever he says is okay. Be careful."
Amodei told the gathered media that AI had "incredible benefits" but "very real risks," and said companies and the government needed to work together so the US could "win safely."
As Amodei spoke, Trump and Zuckerberg stood behind him and shared a whispered exchange, followed by laughter.
During that same press conference, Zuckerberg later explained that the accord was a starting point built around internal risk reviews, external audits, and board oversight.
The agreement misspelled 'United States' #
Trump shared the signed document on Truth Social, calling it the "White House Accord on Super Intelligence."
But eagle-eyed critics noticed a spelling error beneath Trump's signature: "President of the Unites States."
The internet was quick to seize on the mistake in a document that the president had likened to a constitution.
A close-up of the tech leaders' signatures showed most looking like conventional autographs. OpenAI's Brockman stood out for its simplicity: it was simply the lowercase letters "gdb."
Musk caught himself saying 'AI' instead of Trump's new term #
Musk appeared to get tripped up by Trump's new terminology for AI — "Super Intelligence" — during the press gaggle. "I think it is worth highlighting the positive benefits of AI — S.I., pardon me," Musk said, quickly correcting himself while standing next to Trump.
The slip came hours after Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to replace "Artificial Intelligence" and "AI" with "Super Intelligence" and "SI" in official communications, wherever legally permitted.
Trump said he disliked "artificial" because it sounded "fake."
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Key Terms Explained #
Anthropic An AI safety company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including Dario and Daniela Amodei.
Artificial Intelligence The science of creating machines that can perform tasks requiring human-like intelligence — reasoning, learning, perception, language understanding, and decision-making.
NVIDIA The dominant provider of AI hardware.
OpenAI The AI company behind ChatGPT, GPT-4, DALL-E, and Whisper.