President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’d signed a “morally binding” artificial intelligence document with six of the tech industry’s most powerful executives. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who attended the luncheon, described the same paper as a “statement of principles” containing “voluntary” industry commitments.
The White House also announced an executive order directing federal departments and agencies to use “super intelligence” instead of “artificial intelligence” or “AI” in official correspondence, public communications, policy and other documents. Trump told reporters outside the West Wing, “We’ve changed the name officially today.”
What the Accord Actually Says
The two-page accord, which Trump shared on Truth Social, is titled “White House Accord on Super Intelligence: A Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities.” It says each company is responsible for developing its technology safely and in a way that builds trust. It calls for robust internal processes and controls to ensure the technology behaves as intended, and recommends four more layers of controls.
Signatories agreed to meet regularly to set safety standards. Nothing in the document makes those standards mandatory. The accord says only that “over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws or regulations.”
Trump signed alongside Google’s Sundar Pichai, Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Details about the document remained unclear, and the White House didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for more information. The accord itself didn’t declare that the name had changed. It simply used Trump’s preferred term in its title.
Trump called the document “almost like a Constitution in a way.” He said “the biggest people in the world signed that and I signed it as president and it really is a form of protection.” He added that his administration was considering an oversight committee of “maybe 10 people” to “watch over the whole enterprise.” Johnson said the commitments include “robust internal controls” and “layers of internal and external review,” adding, “Safety and innovation are not mutually exclusive pursuits.”
Asked About Guardrails, Trump Points to Trust
Reporters asked why people shouldn’t be concerned about AI and why the government shouldn’t mandate safety guardrails. Trump answered, “Because we have people that love our country and love the world a lot.”
That fits his earlier stance. He has argued the United States doesn’t need new AI-specific regulations. Last week he told world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly that he “rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” AI. He has also dismissed warnings about the technology as a “hoax.” Meanwhile, governments worldwide have struggled to keep pace with rapid advances in AI, while leading AI companies have warned of risks to humanity and appealed for governments to work together to manage them.
Public Opinion and a Senate Rebuke
The public isn’t convinced. A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found 25% of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of AI, while 58% disapproved. That’s below his ratings on the Iran war (28%), the economy (31%) and U.S.-China policy (34%). The survey ran Sept. 24 to Sept. 27 and had a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points. CNBC reported that recent polls show majorities of Americans expressing fear and concern about AI.
Asked whether backing AI and data centers could hurt Republicans in the midterm election, Trump shrugged. “I just have to do what’s right,” he said. Johnson said Republican incumbents agree the United States can’t lose its edge over China in the race for AI dominance.
Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pushed back in a statement. “The companies building the most powerful AI systems are warning us that the technology is advancing faster than our safeguards. The president’s response? To rename it and tell the companies developing it to regulate themselves,” Warner said. “But changing what we call artificial intelligence does nothing to address the very real risks that come with increasingly powerful AI systems.”
The renaming follows other naming moves. Last month, during a flare-up with Canada, Trump signed an order asserting that Lake Ontario would be renamed “Lake America.” After taking office last year, he signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
Why This Matters: The accord puts the companies building the most powerful AI systems in charge of setting and policing their own safety standards. Its own text concedes that laws or regulations may come later, and it offers no timeline.
The Quinnipiac numbers show 58% disapprove of the president’s handling of AI. Many Americans want more than voluntary promises.
Warner’s criticism echoes the companies’ own warnings that the technology is outrunning safeguards. It frames the core question for democratic institutions: who answers to the public if a voluntary system fails? An oversight committee of “maybe 10 people” hasn’t been formed, and its powers and accountability are undefined. Until Congress or regulators act, the public is relying on the goodwill of the firms themselves.