The One AI Regulator to Reach Trump's Desk Was Designed by Google's Hassabis, and Zuckerberg, Musk and Nvidia's Huang Each Called the President to Kill It
About This Episode
The Wall Street Journal reported on September 17 that Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Jensen Huang separately spoke with President Trump in recent weeks to argue against an industry-funded, FINRA-style AI standards body proposed by Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, warning it would entrench OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepMind; Trump did not move forward with it. The same report describes a split inside the White House, with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushing for more scrutiny of AI risk after adviser David Sacks got Trump to scrap a planned May executive order on extended model review. Days later CNBC noted Musk had endorsed Amodei's slowdown call the same week he lobbied against the regulator, and the White House confirmed Musk, Huang, Altman, Pichai and Bezos are on the guest list for the September 24 state dinner with Xi Jinping.
Our Take
The only concrete AI oversight body to reach the President this year was designed by the industry and killed by the industry in three private phone calls, and the objection that killed it, that a regulator would entrench the biggest labs, is true in exactly the way the phone calls are.
Continue Reading on Unscarcity
Iron Law of Oligarchy Explained: Michels to AI (2026)
Both sides of the WSJ story are capture arguments: the objectors say a FINRA-style body would entrench the three biggest labs, and the way they killed it, three billionaires phoning the President while lobbying runs at a tenth straight record, is Michels's mechanism in miniature.
The Liability Gap: What a License Really Sells
Zuckerberg's case that 'significant liability' already disciplines the labs rests on an accountability layer the article argues does not exist yet: a terms-of-service page names no party, posts no capital and creates no duty of care.