{"slug": "trump-and-mike-johnson-think-the-ai-industry-is-overreacting", "title": "Trump and Mike Johnson think the AI industry is overreacting", "summary": "President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed back on calls from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Alphabet's Demis Hassabis to slow AI development, arguing a pause could let China outpace the US. Trump told the Financial Times, \"Look, we're leading China in AI ... and, frankly, I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI, wins,\" while Johnson told CNN's Jake Tapper that rushing restrictions on AI development could be a \"national security threat\" and warned, \"If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try and regulate AI, we will lose the race to China.", "body_md": "Yesterday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a [lengthy open letter](/ai-artificial-intelligence/994337/anthropic-ceo-slow-down-ai-development) saying it was time to “pace the frontier” and slow down AI development. OpenAI’s [Sam Altman](https://x.com/sama/status/2098811563415150910) and [Elon Musk](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2098789109980332057) both agreed, publicly voicing their support on X. Even Alphabet’s Demis Hassabis offered [tentative support](https://x.com/demishassabis/status/2098909516582490602) for Amodei’s proposal.\n\n# Trump and Mike Johnson think the AI industry is overreacting\n\nThe Republicans fear slowing down AI development could give China the edge.\n\nDonald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, seem to think the AI executives are being [overreactive](https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-defends-white-houses-light-touch-on-ai-regulation-c4ed2488) and fear that a pause could lead to China outpacing the US in the AI race. According to the *[Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/cae60732-f929-4735-a627-db8c14e7c7ed)*, Trump said “Look, we’re leading China in AI ... and, frankly, I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI, wins.”\n\nJohnson [echoed those sentiments](https://www.instagram.com/reels/DdO_QnLgiHs/) on *CNN*, telling Jake Tapper that rushing to place restrictions on AI development could be a “national security threat.” He urged people not to panic. “If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try and regulate AI, we will lose the race to China.”\n\n**Follow topics and authors** from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-and-mike-johnson-think-the-ai-industry-is-overreacting", "canonical_source": "https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/994441/trump-mike-johnson-ai-industry-overreacting", "published_at": "2026-09-13 19:41:48+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-13 19:50:14.425795+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy"], "entities": ["Donald Trump", "Mike Johnson", "Dario Amodei", "Anthropic", "Sam Altman", "OpenAI", "Elon Musk", "Demis Hassabis"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-and-mike-johnson-think-the-ai-industry-is-overreacting", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-and-mike-johnson-think-the-ai-industry-is-overreacting.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-and-mike-johnson-think-the-ai-industry-is-overreacting.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-and-mike-johnson-think-the-ai-industry-is-overreacting.jsonld"}}