WASHINGTON, September 30, 2026 – The president of the United States, Donald Trump, invited the leading tech moguls and governmental figures to the White House on Tuesday afternoon to sign a code of conduct that would regulate frontier artificial intelligence.
It was called “almost a constitution” by Mr. Trump, although it has no legal authority whatsoever.
The official name of the agreement is The White House Accord on Superintelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.
As stated by the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, signing is not compulsory, and Mr. Trump admitted that its weight is “morally, not legally, binding.”
The administration’s position could not be clearer: address fears about runaway technology without choking American businesses amid an intense competition with China. “We are not going to stifle growth,” Trump said to reporters gathered near the West Wing, mentioning the possibility of a 10-member advisory council—though he did not name any participants or give them regulatory powers.
The high-stakes lunch had a lineup of the most influential industry figures: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Jensen Huang, Dario Amodei, Jeff Bezos, Satya Nadella, Lisa Su, and Greg Brockman, along with Vice President JD Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Here’s the rub: developers like Amodei have openly called for stricter federal guardrails, yet Trump brushed off “doomsday” warnings in favor of sheer speed.
The agreement relies on intentionally flexible language. It implies that businesses “should implement” layer auditing and report the results to independent panels. “It’s a start,” Zuckerberg said, but no one is buying into it. There is no set of criteria, no regulatory body, no punishment—just voluntary regulation depending on how safe it is for profits.
The summit coincided with the launch of America.gov, an AI-enabled web portal for federal services provided by the government. At present, Washington does not force the industry—it simply hopes for voluntary commitments to work out.
