President Donald Trump postponed the signing of a much-anticipated executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity, pulling the action hours before a scheduled Oval Office ceremony to which executives from leading AI companies had been invited. <cite index="3-2">Trump said he had decided to postpone signing a highly anticipated AI executive order, after the White House had sent out invitations to executives from leading tech companies.</cite>
Speaking to reporters at the White House, the president attributed the delay to specific objections about the draft text. <cite index="4-5,4-6,4-7">The event, set for later Thursday afternoon, was delayed "because I didn't like certain aspects of it," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The U.S. is ahead of China and the rest of the world on AI and "I don't want to do anything that's going to get in the way of that lead," Trump said. He added that AI is "causing tremendous good," and he was concerned that the executive order "could have been a blocker."</cite>
What the order would have done
The draft would have established a federal process for evaluating frontier AI models prior to public release. <cite index="1-10,1-11">The anticipated executive order would have tasked the Office of the National Cyber Director and other agencies with developing a process to evaluate AI models for security before their release. This is partly in response to concerns from the release of Anthropic's Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 Cyber — both of which can quickly find and exploit security vulnerabilities.</cite>
Participation by industry would have been voluntary. <cite index="6-9,6-10,6-11">The order would direct several groups — including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the White House's Office of the National Cyber Director, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy — to establish methods to determine which AI models should fall under the new voluntary testing regime. The order would then charge administration officials with creating a new framework for the government to access and evaluate yet-to-be-released models in conjunction with leading AI companies. The testing arrangements would be voluntary, according to the sources.</cite>
Additional provisions reportedly involved intelligence and finance agencies. <cite index="5-11,5-12,5-13,5-14">The draft order also would elevate the intelligence community's role in assessing AI systems. The National Security Agency would play a key part in determining which new models would need government scrutiny, according to the summary. The administration envisions the Treasury Department working with the AI industry to serve as a hub for finding vulnerabilities and distributing fixes. The order was also expected to direct the government to surge hiring of cybersecurity and AI professionals in the wake of significant cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, whose mission is to help safeguard the nation's critical infrastructure against growing cyberthreats.</cite>
Internal disagreements
Reporting indicates the postponement followed last-minute objections from senior advisers and industry. <cite index="2-9,2-10,2-11">Before the order was to be signed, Trump, AI adviser David Sacks and some in industry discussed it, sources familiar told Axios. The main reason the signing was delayed was that Trump "just hates regulation," one source familiar said, adding that Sacks also "hated it." "The whole thing was unnecessary" and "just something doomers wanted," the source added.</cite> <cite index="2-12,2-13">Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, xAI CEO Elon Musk and Sacks all spoke with Trump between Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Meta and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.</cite>
One industry source questioned the proposed agency structure. <cite index="2-16,2-17">There were also questions about why the order would give the Treasury Department a leading role in finding and fixing AI models' security vulnerabilities. Typically, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have taken leading roles in reviewing and testing critical security vulnerabilities — as well as notifying the tech ecosystem about them.</cite>
Context
Frontier model developers already participate in some federal evaluation programs. <cite index="2-19,2-20">While there were lingering questions about which AI models would participate in the order's voluntary testing program, tech companies have been broadly supportive of AI model testing and guardrails. And leading frontier, or cutting-edge models already do voluntary testing through NIST's Center for AI Standards and Innovation.</cite>
The White House signaled further action remains possible. <cite index="2-21">The White House's Office of the National Cyber Director has teased in private conversations that it is working on additional AI security initiatives besides the executive order that had been expected today, the source said.</cite>