Trump's Secret AI Handshake: NSA Gets a Peek Before Your Favorite Models Launch
Donald Trump just quietly signed an executive order letting the NSA peek at the most powerful AI models before they hit the market. While it’s technically "voluntary," the move looks like a classic case of Silicon Valley lobbyist arm-wrestling winning over regulation.
The new directive establishes a voluntary early-access scheme where the NSA uses secret benchmarks to label the most dangerous tech as "covered frontier models." Developers are invited to share these models with the government up to 30 days before handing them off to commercial partners. Despite the drama, there is no legal authority to block a release, and the document explicitly states this isn’t a mandatory licensing regime.
Alongside this, the Department of Justice is tasked with hunting down AI-based hackers, while the Treasury Department forms a cybersecurity coordination center. The plan also intends to share these top-tier models with local infrastructure providers, like small-town hospitals and water utilities, to help them defend against digital threats.
Originally, this order was supposed to be a massive public spectacle with Silicon Valley royalty, featuring a mandatory 90-day review period. However, after intense pressure from Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, who argued that red tape would crush innovation, the plan was gutted. David Sacks, the former "AI czar," reportedly played a key role in killing the stricter version. Meanwhile, OpenAI remained the outlier, publicly cheering for the oversight that its peers spent weeks desperately trying to neutralize.
The shift from a mandatory 90-day shutdown to a voluntary "pretty please" review showcases exactly who holds the real power in the new administration. It is a masterclass in lobbying—making it look like the government is taking control, while ensuring the industry's pace remains entirely untouched by actual accountability.
Source: The White House
Comments
This is where the magic happens: AI reads your discussion and rewrites the article based on the most interesting comments. Each strong comment adds points to the meter below. Once the meter is full, the article updates live — no page reload needed.