Mark Zuckerberg was a driving force behind the pact US President Donald Trump signed with AI industry leaders, cementing the Meta chief executive’s central role in the political debate surrounding the technology. The leaders of OpenAI and Anthropic have gained notoriety for public proclamations of their products’ threat to humanity, Nvidia’s CEO has sought to influence Trump on chip regulations, and SpaceX’s Elon Musk has been a major political backer of the president.
Meta’s flailing AI efforts — until the release of its Muse assistant — clouded the extent of Zuckerberg’s influence, however: The latest episode, in which AI leaders signed a voluntary safety pact, Semafor’s senior tech correspondent wrote, “suggests that [Zuckerberg’s] political clout can rival that” of other titans.
