# JD Vance criticizes AI leaders’ call for government regulation, calls it a ‘Trojan horse’ > Source: > Published: 2026-09-14 15:05:32+00:00 U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Adam Enbal # JD Vance criticizes AI leaders’ call for government regulation, calls it a ‘Trojan horse’ The vice president argues that big tech companies weaponize safety concerns to lock out smaller competitors from the AI race. Vice President JD Vance isn’t buying what Silicon Valley is selling. Speaking Monday, Vance took direct aim at tech executives who have been lobbying Washington to impose regulatory guardrails on the artificial intelligence industry, calling their appeals “a bit of a Trojan horse.” His argument: the biggest players in AI don’t actually want to be regulated. They want their competitors to be regulated. And there’s a meaningful difference between those two things. ## Safety concerns or competitive moats? Vance accused major tech companies of leveraging legitimate safety concerns to entrench their market positions. It’s a classic regulatory capture playbook: frame the rules as protecting the public while ensuring they primarily protect incumbents. The vice president’s preferred alternative is a pro-growth policy environment that avoids heavy-handed intervention. His view is that excessive regulation doesn’t just slow innovation domestically. It pushes it offshore entirely, to jurisdictions more than happy to welcome the talent and capital that Washington repels. ## The crypto parallel Vance keeps drawing This isn’t just an AI conversation for Vance. He has repeatedly linked artificial intelligence and digital assets as twin strategic technologies that the US cannot afford to lose to foreign competition. ### The news moving money, markets, and the world—before your day starts. Daily. Free. Join 34,000+ readers across crypto, finance, and policy. Vance has been vocal about what he sees as the previous administration’s hostility toward crypto, criticizing regulatory methods that he argues created uncertainty rather than clarity. He has backed a stablecoin bill as part of a broader push to give the digital asset industry a workable legal framework instead of regulation-by-enforcement. The stakes he’s outlined are not small. Vance has warned that without regulatory clarity, the US risks losing its position in a crypto industry valued at roughly $3 trillion. ## Where AI policy meets Bitcoin policy Vance has gone further than most political figures in explicitly connecting AI and [Bitcoin](https://cryptobriefing.com/markets/bitcoin/) as technologies that share a common policy need. He has urged the Bitcoin community to engage directly in AI policy discussions, arguing that the regulatory philosophies governing one will inevitably shape the other. For crypto markets specifically, Vance’s rhetoric reinforces the current administration’s broadly permissive posture toward digital assets. His support for stablecoin legislation and criticism of enforcement-first approaches signals that the White House views regulatory clarity as a priority, at least in principle. **Disclosure:** This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our [Editorial Policy](https://cryptobriefing.com/editorial-policy/).