Day Three of Trump’s Presidency Provides Additional Clarity on the Administration’s Stance on AI
Shortly after publication of yesterday’s Client Alert on recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) executive orders, the Trump Administration issued a new Executive Order with some additional clarification on the direction of its AI policy.
On January 23, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order, “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” which aims to maintain the nation’s leadership in AI that “is free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas.” The Executive Order further clarifies and formally sets the Trump Administration’s AI agenda in stating that “it is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”
In addition to formally setting the new administration’s AI policy, the Executive Order directs his administration to review all actions taken by the prior administration in furtherance of Biden’s newly revoked Executive Order 14110, including the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memoranda M-24-10 and M-24-18 in order to identify inconsistencies with the newly stated goal of the Administration’s AI policy and affirmatively work to suspend, revise or otherwise roll back those actions.
The OMB Memoranda set forth requirements for the federal government’s responsible use and acquisition of AI, and it is not immediately clear what part(s) of the OMB Memoranda are inconsistent with the Administration’s direction on AI policy, but the Executive Order’s fact sheet indicates that they must be revised “to ensure that harmful barriers to America’s AI leadership are eliminated.”
President Trump also made remarks at the World Economic Forum yesterday relating to AI, relaying his plans to build “electric generating facilities” under emergency declarations to run “AI plants” and providing further support to the Stargate project. In those remarks, President Trump highlighted his Administration’s deregulation campaign, including as it relates to termination of the Green New Deal, and how such deregulation “will make the United States a manufacturing superpower and the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto.” The AI comments and activity coming out of the White House continues to align with the pro-innovation and AI deregulation ideologies we saw in the first several days of Trump’s presidency. Additional AI-adjacent updates in President Trump’s first week in office include an Executive Order to establish the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and an Executive Order relating to digital financial technologies.
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