President Donald Trump stated that his administration possesses criminal and regulatory authority over AI companies. He asserted that the industry requires no safety guardrails beyond presidential oversight. This announcement was made via Truth Social shortly after the Monday market opening.
Market reaction was negative, with the Nasdaq Composite falling 0.85% and the S&P 500 dropping 0.57%. Shares of chipmakers declined significantly: Marvell Technology fell 8%, Intel 7%, AMD 5%, while Nvidia and Broadcom dropped approximately 3%. CoreWeave shares decreased by 7%.
In Japan, SoftBank Group, a major investor in OpenAI, saw its stock price close down more than 10%. Meanwhile, oil prices rose, with Brent crude jumping about 4% following the closure of the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia.
Trump dismissed recent calls for safety limitations from Anthropic, OpenAI, and xAI, characterizing the push for regulation as a conspiracy. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, supported by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, had previously urged labs to slow the development of advanced models.
The Chinese government rejected the calls from U.S. tech leaders to slow AI development, labeling such warnings as fearmongering. Investor Michael Burry suggested that the push for safety regulations might be an attempt to squeeze out smaller competitors.
President Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on September 24. Investors are currently evaluating whether the administration's stated authority over the sector will act as a support or a constraint for the AI industry.
