SEATTLE, WA, USA - APR 3, 2025: A man holds smartphone with Truth Social app on Google Play and the face of US president Donald Trump in the background. The app is owned by TMTG. (Photo credit: Charles-McClintock Wilson / Shutterstock)
Donald Trump's latest social media blitz could shape how history judges his presidency, according to a blistering new analysis.
Writing in The i Paper, political editor James Ball argued that Trump's troubles with Ukraine, Iran and climate change may not be what he's remembered for. Instead, Ball said, the crisis that defines his legacy could be how he handles the rise of artificial intelligence.
Trump made his position clear in a barrage of Truth Social posts that began early Monday.
"The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!" Trump wrote.
The president crowned himself the "Hoax Buster" that day and branded fears about the technology a conspiracy pushed by "Radical Left Dumocrats," comparing them to dire climate change warnings. His AI posts drew swift backlash online.
AI industry leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, have called for a slowdown. They also followed the resignation of an Anthropic researcher who warned that the people building AI believe it could wipe out humanity by the end of the decade. The alarms have reportedly split Trump's own administration over whether to rein in the technology.
Ball wrote that the 80-year-old president has never shown detailed interest in or understanding of AI. Ball noted that Trump has received substantial financial and political support from the tech industry, and that his family's financial interests are tied to the sector.
He argued that the U.S. stock market is now propped up almost entirely by the AI boom, and that a crash would trigger a global recession on the scale of the 2008 financial crisis. That, he wrote, would wipe out the one success story of Trump's second term.
Even if extinction fears are overblown, Ball warned, AI could leave millions unemployed, carry massive environmental costs, and trigger a financial crisis.
Amandeep Singh Gill, the United Nations' special envoy for digital and emerging technologies, urged nations not to race for dominance.
"There is no choice but to collaborate across borders – if countries pursue dominance, they might end up making the whole international relations system more complicated, more dangerous," he told The i Paper.
Cooperation, Ball noted, has never been Trump's strong suit.