The Wall Street Journal reports that Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, each spoke separately with President Donald Trump last August and convinced him not to pursue the creation of an industry-funded AI oversight body. According to the WSJ, Trump did not advance the proposal after those conversations.
The proposal in brief
The plan envisioned an industry-funded, self-regulatory body modeled on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The idea was proposed by Demis Hassabis, a lead scientist at Google DeepMind. Its stated aim was to encourage coordinated, safety-minded governance among AI developers.
Why the billionaires opposed it
The three executives reportedly feared that such a body would concentrate additional power in the hands of a few organizations—specifically OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind. That concern was a prominent factor cited by the WSJ as influencing the president’s decision.
Differing positions on safety and regulation
The discussions reflected divergent business interests and views on safety:
- Mark Zuckerberg argued that companies are already incentivized by user expectations to develop software safely, so a new industry-wide self-regulator was unnecessary.
- Jensen Huang of Nvidia said speed and safety can be reconciled and that new rules were not needed.
- Elon Musk’s stance was less consistent: he previously mocked a serious warning from a former Anthropic researcher, yet more recently signaled agreement with Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s CEO, who has urged caution. Musk’s companies have not disclosed a concrete plan for industry-wide coordination of development timelines or safety measures.
Why this matters
At stake is who will set the boundaries for AI development and under what conditions. The WSJ notes that the White House’s internal deliberations were complicated by opponents of regulation who appealed directly to President Trump, which helped stall the proposal. Depending on whether industry self-regulation is adopted or rejected, future AI governance could take markedly different forms—either through private governance mechanisms, government action, or other cooperative arrangements.
Source
This article summarizes reporting from the Wall Street Journal.
