Even as President Donald Trump's own administration quietly splits over whether to rein in artificial intelligence, the president himself is not losing any sleep over warnings that the technology could wipe out humanity, delivering a familiar refrain that it is all merely a "hoax."
The rift has split his cabinet, according to The Atlantic. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are seen as open to regulation, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wants Washington to stay out of the way, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cut ties with Anthropic, makers of Claude, after it refused to drop safeguards against mass surveillance and autonomous killing.
But Trump, for his part, is focused on something else entirely, according to the report.
In a barrage of Truth Social posts on Monday, he waved off the mounting alarm and insisted the technology needs no real oversight.
"AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX," Trump wrote, lumping the fears in with the Russia investigation and his own impeachments. The only guardrail required, he added, is "a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT," and he crowned himself the "Hoax Buster."
His dismissal comes as AI leaders call for a slowdown, with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urging the industry to "pace the frontier", and a company researcher recently quitting and warning that developers "earnestly believe" the technology "could kill us all by the end of the decade."
For his part, Trump mocked Amodei as a "perfect little angel."
Vice President JD Vance floated a darker theory about why AI firms suddenly care about being reined in.
"It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse," he said.
Trump's screed instantly backfired online, and lawmakers across the aisle have warned the country is racing toward a crisis. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is convening a bipartisan briefing and joining Steve Bannon at a "Pro-Human Assembly," has warned that Trump's ignorance on the subject is extremely dangerous, and even Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz are demanding far tougher rules.
The president's real fear reportedly has nothing to do with humanity's collective safety.
One ally told The Atlantic that Trump worries a halt to the AI boom could tip the economy into recession, threatening the soaring markets he views as his scorecard.
OpenAI's Sam Altman has suggested that if Trump strikes an AI safety deal with China's Xi Jinping at next week's White House summit, the president could finally win his long-coveted Nobel Peace Prize.