Trump calls AI safety a hoax after meeting Sam Altman

Sam Altman requested a private backstage meeting with President Donald Trump at last week’s Republican National Convention to discuss the growing influence of artificial intelligence, according to three people familiar with the encounter. The White House and OpenAI provided no details about the conversation.

The meeting took place backstage during the convention. Days later at an investor conference, Trump phoned Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang onstage and told attendees, “I’m telling you it’s all a hoax. The data centers are great. They make people wealthy. They make states wealthy.”

Vice President J.D. Vance has expressed skepticism about AI executives seeking government regulation. The administration has not reconciled why the president met privately with a leading AI executive while publicly minimizing safety warnings.

Technology leaders have urged developers to slow the pace of capability increases for large AI models. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged a paced approach and wrote that his company will give third-party evaluators permanent, employee-level access to systems. Sam Altman has joined other executives calling for pauses or measured steps in development.

Markets moved after Trump’s comments. Nvidia shares fell about 3 percent the day of the remarks, and broader chip stocks slipped as investors considered potential reductions in AI-related capital spending.

Trump is scheduled to meet China’s Xi Jinping next week. Officials and industry observers are watching the administration’s public statements and private engagements on AI. With no official account of the Altman meeting from the White House or OpenAI, the substance of the discussion remains undisclosed.