Trump admin quietly opens broad probe after handshake 'self-regulation' deal

The Federal Trade Commission has quietly opened a sweeping investigation into the safety practices of Anthropic and OpenAI, just days after President Donald Trump publicly praised the AI industry's ability to police itself.

A senior agency official, speaking anonymously because the investigation hasn't been made public, confirmed the probe to the Washington Post, though the exact scope remains unclear. The FTC holds broad authority to investigate unfair or deceptive business practices that harm consumers, and the inquiry hands the administration a useful talking point in its ongoing fight against calls from parts of the industry and Congress to write an entirely new regulatory framework for AI, rather than relying on the laws already on the books.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson laid out that philosophy last week at a Reuters-hosted event, warning that the push for new rules deserves real scrutiny before lawmakers act.

"There's no easier way for incumbents to insulate themselves from competition than to enlist Washington to come alongside them and build a wall and a moat around their existing technologies," Ferguson said.

The investigation lands amid mounting industry anxiety over whether the newest generation of AI models could spiral beyond human control. Companies have acknowledged a string of troubling episodes recently, among them an incident in which a group of automated OpenAI agents managed to infiltrate the systems of a separate AI company. OpenAI announced this week it had scrapped a planned model release entirely over safety concerns, and executives at both Anthropic and OpenAI have floated the idea of a coordinated industry-wide slowdown to buy more time for safety work.

Despite that unease, the administration has largely stuck to its position that responsibility for AI safety rests with the companies themselves, a stance Trump reinforced Tuesday when he signed a joint accord with top AI executives at the White House.

"I'm seeing tremendous self-policing," Trump said following the signing, adding that "there’s a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation."

Vice President JD Vance struck a somewhat different note later that same day, suggesting the Justice Department and FTC still have a real enforcement role to play if companies fall short.

"They have to build products that are safe and good for American consumers. The government actually has preexisting laws on the books where if you build something that gets unleashed on the internet, that is used as a tool for cyberwarfare, then you have responsibility for the products you develop," Vance said.