As pressure mounts on Donald Trump’s administration to regulate frontier artificial intelligence companies, the White House is set to welcome back key tech CEOs for a meeting with the US president and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday, September 29 (US time).
A day before the major gathering, Johnson said the discussion will likely focus on finding a middle ground between the innovation tied to the advancing technology and oversight. As the POTUS has repeatedly asserted, the House speaker reiterated that the US can’t lose the AI race against China.
This week’s White House AI meet comes just days after a long list of tech executives and other industry officials were invited to the presidential mansion to mingle with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a state dinner. Although Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei was notably absent from the Trump-Xi summit on Thursday, he is believed to have stepped out for a private dinner with the POTUS on Sunday.
Last week, Axios was among the first few US media houses to report about the September 29 Trump-Johnson AI meeting with tech executives.
Tech CEOs expected to attend AI meeting
Despite his absence at the Trump-Xi state dinner last week, Anthropic boss Dario Amodei is among the top-shortlisted AI leaders set to attend the meeting, according to multiple US reports, including CBS News, CNBC and Business Insider, citing sources directly familiar with the CEO’s plans for the day.
OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Palantir CEO Alex Karp are also on the list, according to confirmations from the respective companies’ spokespeople to CBS News, CNBC and Reuters. MS Now further reported that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will be joining the luncheon as well.
The Tuesday White House meeting comes as leading AI companies and their top executives, especially Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, are calling on the government to regulate AI’s rapid development. These dire warnings particularly gained mainstream focus after former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit the company earlier this month over the technology potentially posing an existential threat to humanity. Some, on the other hand, including Jensen Huang, have argued against these warnings, branding them as overblown.
SpaceX chief Elon Musk could also be yet another high-profile attendee at the event, according to Reuters.
Trump has downplayed these concerns despite companies openly reporting an increase in AI incidents, including the OpenAI-related Hugging Face hack in July.
After Coxon accused AI frontier companies of “gambling with our lives” with regard to AI development, top tech leaders, including his own boss Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk, have unanimously supported calls for a widespread slowdown despite being industry rivals. However, Trump has dismissed calls for guardrails and AI fears as being a “hoax.”
Meanwhile, a rising number of American lawmakers, including those from the MAGA leader’s Republican Party, continue to question Trump’s approach amid mounting resignations from AI workers.
Among those urging that the US Congress must act responsibly and protect the American people, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNBC on Monday, “When it comes to AI safety, it certainly seems to me that we need to actually lean in boldly and responsibly — now.”
What will happen at the White House meeting?
While speaking to Fox Business Network in an interview on Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed his stance on the issue, saying, “We do not need a moratorium. We do not need to jump in and hyper-regulate this, because we’ll lose the race to China.”
He continued, “The innovation is important to continue, but we have to strike the right balance. That’s what the conversation is going to be about.”
While Trump previously said that the US already has guardrails for AI, including at the Department of Justice, Johnson told Fox Business, “I think there may be a role for the DOJ if things go awry. But what we need before we get to that stage is transparency, and we need some oversight.”
He especially asserted that Tuesday’s conversation will help top officials find the “right balance” instead of “just smothering this with red tape.”
Several tech leaders are also expected to be in attendance at a different event on Tuesday. The all-day event, hosted by the POTUS, Vice President JD Vance and other top officials, is slated to unveil a new website for federal information and resources, according to a White House official cited by CNBC. Panel discussions on AI, energy, space, and other such topics will reportedly take place during the event.
Citing a source familiar with the plans, CNBC reported that Anthropic’s co-founder and Chief Compute Officer Tom Brown will be there for the event.