Trump, top tech firms sign accord to ‘self-police’ AI development

Accord says companies will implement ‘robust internal controls’ for their AI systems and partner with an external auditor to monitor the controls.US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, DC, on September 29, 2026, after meeting with top executives of AI firms [Jacquelyn Martin/ AP]Published On 29 Sep 2026United States President Donald Trump and top tech executives have signed an accord to “self-police” Artificial Intelligence, as calls grow for more guardrails to mitigate risks associated with the technology’s rapid growth.Trump announced the accord on Tuesday after meeting with a large group of AI company leaders at the White House.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Trump unveils new site to simplify access to government serviceslist 2 of 3Pope Leo says AI risk concerns not ‘fake news’list 3 of 3OpenAI cancels release of AI model GPT-6.1 Astra, citing safety concernsend of listExecutives at the meeting included OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.The accord – which Trump posted on his Truth Social platform – said the companies would implement “robust internal controls”, partner with an “independent external auditor” to assess whether the controls were working, and set up a committee among each company’s board of directors to evaluate reports from internal and external auditors.The companies also said they would work to ensure their AI tools ⁠do not “hack or access technical systems in unintended ways”.“Over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws and regulations,” the accord said.The accord comes as the Trump administration faces increasing scrutiny over risks posed by advanced AI, after OpenAI and Anthropic reported that their AI agents had gone rogue and hacked into other companies’ systems.Speaking to reporters at an impromptu news conference outside the West Wing of the White House, Trump described the accord as “almost like a constitution”. “And the biggest people in the world signed that, and I signed it as president. And it really is a form of protection,” he said.Trump repeatedly praised the business executives for developing a technology that he said would produce “unbelievable growth”. He added: “I think I’m seeing tremendous self-policing. And they understand that they have to self-police.”Trump said he is considering setting up ⁠a 10-person board to police the safety of AI tools, but did not specify potential group members.He added he would soon name a new official to lead White House policies on AI.The US president also reiterated his support for the rapid expansion of data centres, which provide the computing power to train and run AI models. The facilities have drawn opposition in communities nationwide over concerns about electricity demand, utility costs and other local impacts.The backlash poses a political challenge for Republicans heading into the US midterm elections on November 3.Asked whether he was concerned that his support for data centres could hurt Republicans in November, Trump said tech companies would work to make communities “happy” about the construction of the centres.“These big, powerful, very ⁠rich, very smart companies are going to be making massive contributions to communities,” Trump told reporters on the White House driveway, surrounded by the company executives.The companies, however, have come under fire for not doing enough to make AI safer.A nationwide Reuters/Ipsos poll ⁠from September 17 to 20 suggested that some 73 percent of respondents worry that AI companies have not done enough to prevent ⁠AI from causing serious harm to society, and 55 percent of people said it would be good to slow AI development.AI company executives and investors were among the largest individual donors in 2025 to MAGA Inc, a political action committee aligned with the president. OpenAI’s Brockman and his wife, Anna Brockman, gave a combined $25m to the committee in 2025, according to Federal Election Commission records.Trump met with the CEOs the same day his aides announced a new ‌AI tool they said would make it easier for the public to use government services. Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia led the design of the tool. Silicon Valley companies Google, SpaceX, Meta and 8VC were listed in the launch ‌event’s ‌programme as sponsors.Trump on Tuesday also directed government agencies to use the words “super intelligence” instead of “Artificial Intelligence” when referring to the technology.