Trump says he and tech leaders signed AI agreement that is 'morally binding'

President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he signed a "morally binding" artificial intelligence document with tech leaders following a luncheon at the White House, as calls for a development slowdown have reached a fever pitch.

Surrounded by major leaders, Trump told reporters that he's "seeing tremendous self-policing" and that the administration is considering building a 10-person committee to oversee the AI industry.

Speaker Mike Johnson referred to the agreement as a statement of principles that are "voluntary on behalf of the industry," and the White House will guide industry development.

Outside the White House, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei reiterated previous AI concerns but said rules to address those risks are "still under discussion."

"We all need to work together to make sure that we can win, and we can win safely," Amodei said. "If we do this right, if we work with the president and everyone here, we can win safely."

Concerns over the rapid pace of AI development have intensified in Washington and Silicon Valley as cases of agent-orchestrated attacks mount and major researchers warn of serious consequences for humanity.

Frontier lab leaders Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman have joined the calls for a slowdown, facing off against leading tech peers and the president, who previously blasted AI safety fears as a "hoax" and a "scam."

Tech leaders want 'safe and happy' communities

Earlier in the day, Trump maintained that the government would not halt AI development and promoted self-regulation.

"There's a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation, and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that," he told reporters after the event, flanked by major tech leaders. "But the self-regulation is very important."

Trump also called sprawling multibillion-dollar data centers a "very positive thing" despite mounting backlash ahead of the midterm elections.

Tech leaders "want to see communities that are safe and happy, and they're going to make communities very, very happy," he said. "Otherwise, they'll be forced to go overseas or other locations."

He also said he plans to name a new AI czar in the next three to four days.

Outside the White House, Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su said she was "very encouraged" by Tuesday's event, adding that there was "a lot of optimism and a sense of responsibility" in the room.

"I mean, at the end of the day, it's our responsibility to show the power of the technology as well as ensure that it's very safe," Su told reporters.

This week, OpenAI postponed the release of its latest GPT-6.1 Astra model over safety concerns. Just last week, the company said it was conducting an "extensive" review of model behavior.

The AI lab has disclosed several incidents of unauthorized model behavior since the infamous Hugging Face attack sparked concerns over rogue AI earlier this summer.

Big tech leaders unite

A luncheon seating chart posted to Trump's Truth Social account on Tuesday showed the president seated next to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, followed by Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai.

Opposite the president sat Vice President JD Vance, between Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Johnson.

Other attendees included Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Anthropic's Dario Amodei and Tom Brown, OpenAI's president Greg Brockman and senior administration officials such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

OpenAI is simultaneously hosting its annual DevDay developer conference in San Francisco. John Ternus, Apple's new CEO, did not appear on the list.

"The main issue that you have and I have is we have to take responsibility for the dangers we're aware of," Palantir CEO Alex Karp told CNBC outside the White House on Tuesday ahead of the event. "All of us do. And by the way, American people don't want separate rules for tech people and for themselves."

The luncheon coincided with an all-day event hosted by the president and vice president, where the administration unveiled a new AI-powered chatbot for government websites.

Ahead of Tuesday's White House lunch, Anthropic's Amodei attended a private dinner Sunday with the president, following his striking absence from a state dinner for the Chinese president. Sunday's dinner was the first one-on-one gathering between the two leaders, according to a person familiar with the visit.

Trump has long maintained that the U.S. needs to maintain its competitive edge on AI.

"These are the most brilliant people in the world, and the job they've done is unbelievable," Trump said on Tuesday. "We have a very big lead, and we're going to keep our lead, and it's a very positive thing."