Pretending to be perfect little angel: Donald Trump lashes out at Dario Amodei over AI slow down calls

US President Donald Trump has hit back at the AI industry over demands for slowing down AI development. Trump has called out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, claiming that Amodei was just pretending to be a "perfect little angel."

In Short

• Donald Trump mocks Dario Amodei, says he is pretending to be perfect little angel
• Trump claims AI safety debate will only make China happy
• Dario Amodei and others want to slow down AI development

US President Donald Trump has pushed back against growing calls in the AI industry for a slow down in AI development. In a post on Truth Social, Trump slammed AI companies, and in particular, mocked Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, stating that Amodei was “pretending to be a perfect little angel.”

In the post, the US president claimed that he was the only guardrail needed for AI development. He wrote, “The only control or “guardrails” that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”

In addition, Donald Trump stated that his administration had stopped “AI people” including Dario Amodei from “doing bad things.” The US president went on to say that Amodei was only pretending to be nice. “The Trump Administration has stopped AI “people” from doing bad, or potentially bad, “things,“ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a “perfect little angel” - and we will continue to do so,” Trump wrote.

Trump’s comments come at a time when the US AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic have increasingly pushed for regulation around frontier AI development. Previously, Dario Amodei shared a long essay on X where he gave three ways this could be done.

Trump says only China is happy about AI slow down debate

In the same post, Donald Trump claimed that the US government had “tremendous criminal and regulatory power” over American AI companies. At the same time, the US president asserted that the growing debate over the risks associated with AI models may be a conspiracy that would only benefit China. “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” he added.

Trump doubled down on his stance against federal regulation around slowing down AI development. “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so,” he added.

In a follow-up post, the US president compared the AI takeover scenario to that of global warming. “The claim that ‘AI is going to take over the World’ is a Hoax, just like Global ‘Warming,’ where everyone was going to be dead by now,” he wrote.

There is a growing debate on whether advanced AI models pose a threat to humanity. Former Anthropic staff member Jacob Coxon had stated on X, “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” OpenAI's Marcus Williams recently predicted that there was a 70 per cent chance that AI may end humanity in the next three years.

Meanwhile, Dario Amodei has argued that AI companies should "slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models" to reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote on X that he agreed with the Anthropic CEO over such a possibility, while Elon Musk said, “Dario is right.” In a recent interview, Amodei said there were "real dangers" related to AI and that the industry had lied to people for too long about the risks.

Previously, Donald Trump had outright rejected any ideas related to slowing down AI research in the US. “We can put guardrails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that ... shouldn't be bringing it up, and they're bringing up things that won't happen," Trump said earlier this week. “Frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins."

As per reports, Donald Trump recently met Sam Altman to discuss AI safety. Altman recently wrote on X that AI companies should not be reckless when it comes to developing new AI models, even if there is no federal regulation around it just yet.

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