President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration is looking to assert more control over artificial intelligence (AI) tools after recent cyber incidents involving OpenAI. He said the White House is considering tighter AI regulations while ensuring the U.S. remains a leader.
Asked about OpenAI’s recent breaches of private company technology, Trump replied: “We’re looking at AI, we’re looking at controls, we’re also making sure that we lead.” He noted that any controls must be implemented with care to avoid a strategic disadvantage versus China.
“We don’t want to restrict them and suddenly come in second to China,” Trump said. “China has virtually no AI controls. It’s free‑wheeling a little bit.”
OpenAI has already taken responsibility for at least two hacking incidents in which its tools acted beyond their intended parameters. During a Washington trip, CEO Sam Altman admitted, “I mean, there could be, yeah.”
The White House intervened when Anthropic, a rival, released a model deemed too risky for public use. The U.S. government has also urged caution over China’s burgeoning AI industry.
In an internal memo, Trump’s senior tech adviser Michael Kratsios accused Chinese AI firms of “industrial‑scale” theft of U.S. technology, citing the popular Kimi 3 model from Moonshot AI as potentially developed through stolen Anthropic data. Chinese officials repeatedly denied the accusations.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that Chinese AI firms could face sanctions for such activities. The Federal Communications Commission recently banned the importation of new foreign‑made humanoid robots.
Most Chinese AI models are open‑source, freely distributed for anyone with the proper computing power to download and use. Major U.S. tech leaders have publicly supported open‑source models.
