President Donald Trump has postponed the signing of a significant executive order that would grant the government authority to evaluate AI models before their public release.
Trump expressed dissatisfaction with the current draft's language during a White House press pool session. "I didn’t like certain aspects of it," Trump stated. "We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that leading." He specifically noted that the order's phrasing could have functioned as a "blocker."
Unofficially, reports suggest the delay stemmed from a scheduling conflict: not enough high-profile tech CEOs were able to travel to Washington, D.C. on short notice for the planned signing ceremony and accompanying photo op.
The anticipated order would task the Office of the National Cyber Director and other federal agencies with establishing a pre-release security evaluation process. This regulatory push follows the release of highly capable models like Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 Cyber, both of which demonstrated the ability to rapidly identify and exploit digital vulnerabilities.
A major point of contention in the draft, according to CNN, is a proposed mandate requiring AI developers to share advanced models with the government between 14 and 90 days before their scheduled launch. This pre-market review period is seen by some as a potential bottleneck for the rapid pace of AI development.
