Trump postpones AI security executive order: ‘I don’t want to get in the way of this leadership’

President Donald Trump has delayed signing an executive order allowing the government to evaluate artificial intelligence models before releasing them.

Trump claimed he was unhappy with the language of the order: “I didn’t like certain aspects of it,” he told a White House press conference. “We lead China, we lead everyone, and I don’t want to do anything that would hinder that leadership.”

The unofficial reason: Not enough tech CEOs can make it to Washington, D.C., on short notice, according to several reports. What is signing an executive order without a souvenir photo?

The expected executive order would have tasked the Office of the National Cyber ​​Director and other agencies with developing a process for evaluating AI models for security before they are released. This is partly due to concerns stemming from the release of Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 Cyber ​​— both of which can quickly detect and exploit vulnerabilities.

One of the major sticking points in the EO’s language, according to CNN, is the proposed requirement for AI companies to share advanced models with the government between 14 and 90 days before launch.

Trump said he was concerned that today’s EO language “could be a liability.”