US AI regulation just took a hard pivot. President Trump abruptly pulled the plug on a pending executive order that would have required frontier AI model makers to voluntarily submit their models to government review before release. The order, originally slated for signing on May 21, was withdrawn hours before the ceremony. Then, on May 26, Trump appointed former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). From killing a federal review rule to adding a legal heavyweight, the White House is turning PCAST into a weapon to tear down state-level AI regulations. Bondi's litigation background, paired with PCAST co-chair David Sachs's deregulatory bent, signals an intent to sue away any state "defensive tech barriers" in a sprint to let frontier AI run wild—all in the name of beating China.
https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/2059482315219460150
The now-dead draft order focused on pre-release review. It had already been watered down from a mandatory licensing scheme akin to the FDA's drug approval process to a "voluntary pre-release review framework." But even that would have required developers to share their models with the government up to 90 days before public release for a national security assessment. Frontier labs lobbied to cut that window to just 14 days. Trump, unhappy with the terms and worried that federal pre-checks would hurt America's edge over China, threw the whole thing out—wasting months of work by the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD).
The White House's sharp about-face matches the public stance of PCAST co-chair David Sachs. When Pope Leo XIV issued an encyclical on May 25 titled Magnifica Humanitas, warning that the "AI revolution threatens human dignity," Sachs pushed back. He agreed AI should serve human dignity, but rejected giving government a "safety net" control. Sachs argued that handing over model development control to the state is "the real alignment problem," warning that government control easily morphs into censorship, surveillance, and authoritarianism. He quoted the Roman line "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" and Lord Acton's aphorism "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely." Sachs welcomed Bondi's addition, signaling the White House will use litigation to preempt conflicting state laws, pursuing extreme deregulation to maintain America's lead in the AI race with China.