Trump Signs AI Executive Order Requiring Voluntary Pre-Release Model Review
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday requiring AI companies to voluntarily submit powerful models to the federal government for testing up to 30 days before public release. The order establishes a framework to assess AI models' cybersecurity capabilities and addresses national security concerns.
Executive Order Signed Amid Industry Pressure
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday on AI and national security. The Trump administration's latest AI executive order aims to mitigate security threats posed by artificial intelligence, asking AI companies to voluntarily submit their most powerful models for the government to test up to 30 days before releasing them to the public. The signing took place privately, representing a scaled-back version of an earlier draft that would have required a 90-day review period.
Government Cybersecurity Framework
The order directs federal agencies to develop benchmarks to assess AI models' cyber capabilities, to create an "an AI cybersecurity clearinghouse" to review and share information on vulnerabilities, and to shore up the government's security defenses. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the National Cyber Director, the Secretary of War, through the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Secretary of Homeland Security, through the Director of CISA, shall form an AI cybersecurity clearinghouse, in voluntary collaboration with the AI industry and operators of critical infrastructure, that coordinates and deconflicts scanning for software vulnerabilities, discovers and validates such vulnerabilities, and coordinates and prioritizes remediation and distribution of vulnerability patches.
Context: Industry Victory and Political Reversal
The executive order was expected to come out last month, but the White House scrapped signing plans over concerns that it would interfere with AI innovation, with Trump worrying the order would stifle American companies' lead in the global race amid competitive pressure from China, and that earlier version gave the government up to 90 days to review advanced models before release — a timeline that was cut to 30 days in the final order. Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reportedly called the Trump administration last month to lobby against the prior AI executive order the president was prepared to sign.
Catalyst: Claude Mythos Cybersecurity Breakthrough
In April, AI company Anthropic's new Mythos Preview model sent shockwaves through Washington with its superhuman ability to find critical and severe vulnerabilities in the world's most-used operating systems, with experts saying that Mythos Preview represented a significant leap in cybersecurity capabilities in particular. The Tuesday order also comes after Anthropic announced Claude Mythos Preview, a model that excels at identifying weaknesses and security flaws within software, and limited the rollout to a select group of companies as part of a cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing, which it expanded on Tuesday.