Trump, tech bosses sign voluntary pact pledging ‘robust’ AI safeguards
US President Trump touts self-regulation amid calls from the international community and industry for formal rules.
US President Donald Trump, seated next to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, left, and Elon Musk, right, speaks at the White House, Washington, DC, September 29, 2026 [Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]
United States President Donald Trump and top tech executives have signed an accord promising greater safeguards for artificial intelligence amid growing concerns that the frontier technology is exposing humanity to catastrophic risks.
Trump announced the voluntary accord on Tuesday after gathering AI leaders at the White House for a luncheon event that reaffirmed his administration’s scepticism of government regulation of the rapidly advancing technology.
“There’s a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation, and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that,” Trump said while seated alongside tech executives.
Under the Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities, bosses at Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, xAI and Nvidia pledged to implement “robust” controls to monitor AI models and appoint internal teams to “ensure all of the controls, monitoring, and detection are operating as intended, and that any issues are remediated”.
The companies also pledged to partner with independent external auditors to ensure the safeguards are working as intended and to meet regularly to “establish standards and best practices to improve the safety of their systems”.
The accord, which does not stipulate who would carry out third-party evaluations, states that it “may make sense” to codify the measures into law or formal regulations in the future.
“Regardless of whether this is required of companies, we believe that implementing these controls and audits is critical to ensuring a safe future for everyone, and each of our companies are committed to doing this,” the accord states.
‘Pace the frontier’
The six signatories are Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, xAI’s Elon Musk, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.
The accord comes as the Trump administration is at odds with calls for urgent action to regulate AI from both the international community and key industry figures, including Anthropic’s Amodei, who has urged developers to slow down and “pace the frontier”.
Twenty countries and the European Union last week issued a call for global coordination to ensure AI remains under human control, including the potential creation of an oversight body to set and enforce standards.
Trump has rejected calls for supranational regulation, telling the United Nations General Assembly last week that his administration would oppose “any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” AI.
Trump has also dismissed calls from the industry for a slowdown in development, despite warnings of catastrophic and even existential risks, citing the need to maintain a lead over China.
The risks of AI escaping human control have received scrutiny following a slew of cases of AI agents going rogue and conducting cyberattacks on organisations and government agencies.
On Monday, OpenAI announced that it would not release its latest AI model after identifying safety risks during in-house testing.
The creator of ChatGPT also separately issued a public apology for its handling of a series of incidents in which its AI agents gained unauthorised access to Australian government websites, including a national healthcare database.
Trump’s accord drew a mixed response on Tuesday, with critics noting its nonbinding nature and limited details.
Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, who previously served as Trump’s AI tsar, called the accord “far better” than an international agreement that would “probably never happen”.
“President Trump continues to ensure that the U.S. remains the technology leader while putting Americans first,” Sacks said in a post on X.
Alvin Wang Graylin, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, welcomed the pledge by industry leaders but said it fell far short of what was needed.
“The most serious risk to Americans is not a Chinese superintelligence. It is a smaller model in non-state hands, used for biological, chemical, or cyber-harm,” Graylin told Al Jazeera.
“Putting that on paper, with Zuckerberg and Huang in the room alongside Amodei, is better than another year of ‘we cannot regulate because China will not’,” Graylin said.
“What is missing is independence and anything that crosses a border. The companies drafted the principles, they hire the auditor, and the commitment is voluntary, on a day the White House also said it would not support guardrails,” he added.
‘Incompetent and careless’
Toby Walsh, chief at the UNSW AI Institute in Sydney, Australia, said AI companies had already proven “incompetent and careless at managing themselves”.
“What other trillion-dollar industry marks its own homework?” he told Al Jazeera.
“It’s too tempting to cut corners,” Walsh said, adding that top executives should be held liable for the harms caused by their products.
“We should be billing them for all the time put into identifying and fixing these cyberattacks,” he said.
David Krueger, an AI expert at the University of Montreal who advocates a pause in development, criticised the accord as vague and a further example of the Trump administration’s reliance on self-regulation.
“The Trump administration is continuing its ‘regulate without regulating’ approach, where everything is ostensibly voluntary, but there is an implicit threat of punishment for noncompliance,” Krueger told Al Jazeera.
“If you look at the substance, it’s interesting that it calls for external evaluators, so it might result in a minute improvement over the status quo,” Krueger said.
“But I’m not excited by something that might reduce the risk by 1 percent.”
NO SURRENDER — Ilhan Omar Fires Back at Donald Trump After Federal Agents Search Her Home
Ilhan Omar is refusing to back down after federal agents searched her Washington, D.C., home in a criminal investigation—an extraordinary development that has reignited her long-running confrontation with Donald Trump just weeks before the midterm elections.
The Minnesota Democrat responded with a defiant message: “I will not be silenced.” She accused the Trump administration of using federal law enforcement to target political opponents and described the search as another escalation in what she called a decade-long campaign of intimidation.
The statement immediately raised the political stakes. Omar is not simply disputing the circumstances surrounding the search; she is challenging the administration’s conduct and demanding that the public examine why federal agents took such a consequential step so close to an election.
But the central questions remain unresolved: What exactly are investigators looking for, what evidence supports the inquiry, and will the search trigger a broader confrontation between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration?
‘I Will Not Be Silenced’: Omar’s Defiant Response
On October 12, after news of the search emerged, Omar posted a response on social media that began with a brief reassurance: “I’m ok.”
She then delivered a much sharper political message, accusing the administration of targeting political enemies and weaponizing federal law enforcement.
“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns,” Omar wrote, describing the search as the latest escalation in what she characterized as political intimidation. She ended with a declaration that quickly became the defining line of her response: “I will not be silenced.”
Her congressional office issued a separate statement calling the search an “outrageous abuse of power” and an “unprecedented escalation” in the use of federal law enforcement against political opponents. The statement said Omar had done nothing wrong and argued that no president should be able to use the federal government to intimidate political adversaries.
Those are Omar’s allegations and her office’s position. The search itself was carried out under a judicially authorized warrant, according to the Justice Department. Whether investigators uncover evidence of wrongdoing—and whether the search was justified by the facts of the case—remains to be established.
What Happened at Omar’s Washington Home?
Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, searched Omar’s Washington residence early Monday, October 12.
The Justice Department confirmed that agents executed a search warrant authorized by a court as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Officials did not publicly disclose a complete account of the evidence being sought or all the details of the inquiry.
Reporting by CBS News and The Washington Post indicated that investigators were examining immigration paperwork dating back to Omar’s childhood. The documents reportedly involved paperwork completed by her late father when the family came to the United States as refugees from Somalia.
The details remain limited, and the reported focus of the investigation should not be confused with a finding of guilt. A search warrant authorizes investigators to look for specified evidence; it does not establish that the person whose home is searched committed a crime.
Omar has repeatedly rejected allegations against her and portrayed the renewed scrutiny as politically motivated. Her office’s statement following the search reiterated that she had done nothing wrong.
As of the latest reports, authorities had not publicly laid out a complete evidentiary case against the congresswoman. That leaves a critical distinction at the center of the story: the investigation is real, but its ultimate findings are not yet known.
Why the Timing Has Become a Political Flashpoint
The search took place less than a month before the November midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake. That timing has intensified questions from Democrats about whether the action could influence the political environment surrounding Omar’s reelection campaign.
House Judiciary Committee Democrats raised concerns about the search, while senior Democratic leaders condemned the action and questioned the use of federal power against a sitting member of Congress so close to an election.
The criticism centers on more than Omar’s personal dispute with Trump. It touches on a broader principle: federal law enforcement must be able to investigate potential crimes, but its decisions should be grounded in evidence and applied without improper political influence.
The Justice Department has confirmed the existence of a court-authorized search but has not publicly provided a full explanation of the investigative rationale. Without that information, it is not possible to establish from the public record alone whether the timing was politically motivated or driven by investigative necessities.
That uncertainty is likely to keep the controversy alive. Democrats are demanding answers about the decision and its timing, while the investigation itself remains ongoing.
A Long-Running Clash Between Omar and Trump
Omar has been one of Trump’s most prominent congressional critics. Their political conflict has repeatedly drawn national attention, with disputes involving immigration, national identity, federal enforcement and the congresswoman’s background.
Trump has frequently criticized Omar in public, while Omar has accused him of spreading false claims and using inflammatory rhetoric against her and the Somali American community.
In the days before the search, Omar had also criticized Trump’s rhetoric about Somali Americans. The latest federal action therefore arrived against the backdrop of an already bitter political relationship—not in isolation.
Still, a history of public hostility does not by itself prove that a federal investigation was politically directed. Establishing improper interference would require evidence about how the investigation was initiated, authorized and conducted.
That distinction matters because the controversy involves two separate questions: whether investigators have a legitimate basis to pursue the case, and whether the administration has handled the matter in a politically appropriate way.
Both questions deserve scrutiny, but neither should be treated as settled before the relevant evidence is available.
Democrats Demand Answers as the Investigation Continues
Omar’s response has been echoed by Democratic colleagues who say the search raises serious concerns about the use of federal power. Some have called for accountability and greater transparency about the investigation.
Their criticism is also shaped by the election calendar. A federal search involving a sitting member of Congress in the final weeks before voters head to the polls is certain to draw heightened political attention, even when authorities have a judicial warrant.
The administration’s position and the investigators’ evidence will be crucial to determining how the controversy develops. If officials disclose a clear evidentiary basis for the search, that information will help the public evaluate the government’s actions. If significant questions remain unanswered, pressure for congressional oversight may intensify.
For now, the public has only a partial picture of the investigation. Officials have confirmed a court-authorized search, but have not disclosed all the evidence or publicly established that Omar committed a crime.
What Happens Next for Ilhan Omar?
The immediate questions are whether investigators will release additional information, whether Omar or her representatives will provide further details, and whether congressional leaders will seek formal oversight of the search.
Omar has made her own position unmistakable: she intends to continue speaking out and views the search as an attempt to intimidate a political opponent. The Trump administration’s critics have embraced that interpretation, while the legal justification for the search must ultimately be evaluated through the evidence and applicable law.
The coming days could bring more details about the investigation, new statements from lawmakers and further debate over the role of federal law enforcement during an election season.
For now, the most defensible conclusion is also the most consequential: a federal search has triggered a major political confrontation, Omar has publicly challenged the administration’s motives, and key questions about the investigation remain unanswered.
Her “I will not be silenced” declaration has become a rallying cry for her response. Whether the dispute grows into a wider congressional battle will depend on what investigators reveal next—and whether the government can explain its actions in a way that withstands public and legal scrutiny.
