President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are expected to meet AI executives at a White House lunch on 29 September, CNBC reported. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei and Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg are among those expected, according to people familiar with the plans. The lunch forms part of an all-day event that Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials are hosting, a White House official told CNBC.
Key points
- Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai is also expected at the lunch, the company confirmed.
- Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is expected to attend, MS Now reported. OpenAI president Greg Brockman is also expected to attend, Reuters reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
- Johnson rejected an AI development moratorium on 28 September and argued for transparency and oversight.
- A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on 22 September found support for slowing AI development to improve safety and oversight.
The White House programme extends beyond AI
The White House official said the administration would announce a new website for federal information and resources during the 29 September event. Panel discussions are planned on AI, energy, space and other subjects. The reported lunch brings executives into a broader programme hosted by the president and senior administration officials, rather than a meeting devoted solely to AI policy.
Alphabet confirmed Pichai’s planned attendance on 28 September. MS Now reported Huang’s expected attendance. Reuters reported Brockman’s, citing a person familiar with the matter. An unnamed person cited by CNBC also expects Anthropic co-founder and Chief Compute Officer Tom Brown to attend the event.
The expected attendance of Amodei and Zuckerberg was confirmed by several people familiar with the lunch plans, who also spoke anonymously. Their accounts concerned a planned meeting.
Johnson opposes a moratorium before the lunch
Johnson told Fox Business on 28 September that the United States needed to “strike the right balance” between AI innovation and oversight, Benzinga reported. “We do not need a moratorium. We do not need to jump in and hyper-regulate this, because we’ll lose the race to China,” he said. Johnson said the conversation would concern preserving innovation while providing some oversight.
The Speaker also called for transparency and said “there may be a role for the DOJ if things go awry”, according to Benzinga. His remarks described a possible role for the Justice Department, rather than an enforcement measure announced for the White House event. Trump told the UN General Assembly that the department would watch AI closely, while saying he would not “stifle growth”.
Johnson’s objection to a moratorium sits alongside a different position from some executives expected in the room. Amodei has written an essay urging companies to “pace the frontier” in developing advanced AI. OpenAI chief Sam Altman and Elon Musk have agreed with calls for an industry-wide slowdown. Trump has called fears about AI a “hoax” and a “scam”. Those positions give the participants subjects to contest at the lunch, without making the gathering a legislative or regulatory proceeding.
Amodei’s dinner with Trump preceded the event
Amodei had a private dinner with Trump on 27 September. It was their first one-on-one meeting, according to a person familiar with the visit who spoke to CNBC. Amodei had been absent from the state dinner held for Chinese President Xi Jinping on 24 September, which Apple’s Tim Cook, SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Advanced Micro Devices chief executive Lisa Su attended.
The encounter also follows a dispute involving Amodei’s views on safety. A previous AI Affairs report described a Trump adviser’s memo targeting the Anthropic chief executive over those views. AI Affairs previously reported plans for the 29 September meeting involving Trump, Johnson and technology executives.
The debate reaches the White House against measurable public concern. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on 22 September found that 73% of Americans believed AI companies were doing too little to prevent serious harm. It found that 55% supported slowing development to improve safety and oversight, and that respondents favoured safe and responsible development over global competitiveness by 73% to 23%.
