Surveyed executives doubt Trump will seek joint AI guardrails with Xi
A flash poll at an invitation-only gathering of top American executives in Washington this week found 93% of business leaders surveyed disagreed with President Trump’s claim that AI’s dangers are a hoax.
The event, organized by Yale School of Management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, drew dozens of CEOs from industries and regions outside Silicon Valley. Executives from toolmaker Snap-on, Motorola Solutions and glassmaker Corning — which received an award at the forum — were among the attendees. The room was a mix of Republican and Democratic executives and government officials, including former Vice President Mike Pence and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Many attendees declined to speak publicly for fear of alienating the Trump administration, but a series of poll questions let them share their concerns collectively.
Of those surveyed, 88% said Trump should address the need to collaborate with China on AI-safety guidelines during his meeting with Xi Jinping. The White House is scheduled to host Xi for a state dinner next week, where the global race to build the most advanced AI is expected to loom large.
On the question of whether Trump would actually push for joint guardrails, however, executives expressed less confidence. About three-quarters of respondents said they did not expect the president to do so.
“It was stunning,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor who organized the CEO meeting. In conversations with executives both in the room and in debriefings afterward, Sonnenfeld said business leaders told him they wanted more discussions on ways to safeguard against AI and its possibilities for harm. “The sentiment was: It’s real,” Sonnenfeld said.
Trump has dismissed calls for tighter federal regulations, arguing that such guardrails would financially ruin the industry and give China an edge. Over the weekend, leaders of the biggest AI companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, said the industry needed to slow development of advanced AI to ensure its safety.
Chris Layden, the CEO of staffing and recruiting firm Kelly, attended the Yale event. Layden said both AI’s potential for harm and the risk of losing the AI race to China need to be addressed, and that he also wanted to see government and business focus more on what the technology means for jobs and U.S. workers.
“We needed a U.S. workforce strategy on AI readiness yesterday,” Layden said. “We’ve got to focus on the trust that the American worker has with AI, and the opportunity it has to help make us better learners, more efficient, more productive.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.