Source: Trump finds an AI policy he can live with Publisher: Politico | Author: Sophia Cai, Cheyenne Haslett, Aaron Mak Published: June 2, 2026 | Archived: June 2, 2026

The action also creates a classified benchmarking process to assess the national security implications of advanced AI models and determine which are covered by the policy. This will be overseen by the National Security Agency director in consultation with cybersecurity and technology leaders from the White House, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Pentagon.

Overall, the document is similar to the draft executive order that Trump had planned to sign in May. It even includes identical language denying that the administration was seeking to create a mandatory vetting process: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models.”

Former Trump AI adviser Dean Ball expressed surprise that so much of the earlier draft remained intact — and said he feared it set the stage for more onerous federal oversight.

“Wow. This EO is almost exactly similar to the leaked text from the EO POTUS chose not to sign because it was too regulatory,” Ball wrote on X. He added that he saw the benefits of the voluntary reviews as “barely articulable” — “what, exactly, is the intelligence community going to do in 30 days to make the models safer?”

The White House’s reversals have added to anxiety among people inside and outside the government that the U.S. is responding too slowly to the dangers posed by AI’s quick evolution. POLITICO reported last month that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has conveyed concerns to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about the speed of the government’s response and the need for coordination with the private sector.

Trump, who got huge support from Silicon Valley’s titans for his second presidential election victory, came into office seeking to ease regulatory burdens on AI in hopes of outcompeting China. But that policy has morphed this year as powerful new models such as Anthropic’s Mythos threaten to undermine cybersecurity in even the most sensitive computer systems.

The administration even floated the idea of imposing mandatory federal reviews of cutting-edge AI models, a process that National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett had told Fox Business in May would be akin to the Food and Drug Administration’s reviews of pharmaceuticals. But the White House quickly backpedaled on that idea.

In addition to its other provisions, the final order tells the Pentagon to secure its networks within 30 days. It also directs the Justice Department to pursue criminal cases against any individuals who use AI models to hack into computer systems.

The administration will also have 30 days to issue directives requiring that federal agencies step up the defense of federal networks in light of newly uncovered vulnerabilities, and to make AI models with hacking capabilities available to some state and local governments and to critical infrastructure operators.

Details of the policy directive come after weeks of discussions between the White House and industry over how to curtail potentially systemic threats from the technology — especially the risk that AI could help U.S. adversaries find and exploit security flaws faster than anyone can patch them. Those talks followed the release of powerful models such as Mythos, which researchers say has already discovered long-buried vulnerabilities in widely used computer systems.

Mythos’ capabilities have especially alarmed top administration officials since Anthropic announced it in April, and prompted federal agencies to seek access to the model to secure government systems.

Brendan Bordelon, Dana Nickel and Maggie Miller contributed to this report.