Trump signs 'morally binding' AI accord with tech leaders at White House lunch

US President Donald Trump and executives from the country's largest technology companies signed a voluntary accord on frontier AI safeguards at the White House on Tuesday, 29 September 2026, after a lunch meeting with industry leaders. Trump, who posted the document on his Truth Social account, called it "morally binding".

"The biggest people in the world signed that and I signed it as president," he told reporters. "And it really is a form of protection."

Four layers of control and audit

The copy Trump published titles the document the White House Accord on "Super Intelligence", subtitled a "Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities". It asks companies developing frontier models to adopt internal processes that keep their systems working as intended and catch problems early.

One layer covers internal controls that monitor model capabilities and alignment, naming cybersecurity, biosecurity and chemical risks, and guards against models reaching technical systems in unintended ways. The fourth layer establishes an independent board committee to oversee the process, review reports from internal teams and outside evaluators, and make sure findings are acted on.

House Speaker Mike Johnson described the agreement as a statement of principles "voluntary on behalf of the industry".

Self-regulation instead of new rules

Trump rejected new federal AI rules, saying the government already regulates through the Department of Justice and the FBI. "There's a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation, and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that," he said. "But the self-regulation is very important."

He added that the administration is considering a ten-person committee to oversee the AI industry, and that he expects to name a new AI czar within three to four days.

Who was in the room

Seated beside Trump were Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, followed by Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai. The room also held Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei and Tom Brown, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, AMD's Lisa Su and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Amodei, who has repeatedly warned about AI risk, said rules to address those dangers are "still under discussion", adding: "We all need to work together to make sure that we can win, and we can win safely." Su said she was "very encouraged" by the meeting. The same day, Trump signed an order requiring federal agencies to call artificial intelligence "Super Intelligence", or "SI", in official communications.

Sources: CNBC · Bloomberg · Türkiye Today