Trump is right: AI 'hoax' warnings are just a market moat
By Bram de Vries · Reporting from Amsterdam ·
The world is currently being lectured on "existential risk" by men who are eyeing trillion-dollar IPOs. It is a familiar tune.
The world is currently being lectured on "existential risk" by men who are eyeing trillion-dollar IPOs. It is a familiar tune. We are told that the machine is too powerful, the pace too fast, and the danger too great. But Donald Trump, with the bluntness of a Rotterdam dockworker, has seen through the theater. By calling the AI apocalypse a "hoax," the President isn't displaying ignorance; he is identifying a strategic attempt to throttle the greatest economic engine in history.
The Existential Panic is a Market Moat
Let us be honest about the "warnings." Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, argues for a coordinated slowdown, claiming rapid advances pose an "existential threat to society," as reported by PBS. Senator Bernie Sanders has gone further, introducing a bill for a temporary pause and a ban on superintelligence. This is the strongest case for regulation: the idea that we are building a god we cannot control, and that a "global pause" is the only sane response.
But look at the ledger. Anthropic is reportedly on the verge of a $1 trillion to $2 trillion IPO. When the titans of the industry—the Altmans and the Amodeis—suddenly discover a conscience and beg for "guardrails," they aren't protecting humanity; they are building a moat. They want the government to codify the current state of the art, ensuring that no lean startup in a garage can disrupt their hegemony. As Vice President JD Vance rightly noted via CBS News, these pleas for regulation are a "Trojan horse."
We saw this pattern during the EU AI Act (2023-2024), where Brussels attempted to regulate the future into a standstill before it even arrived. The result is always the same: the innovators move elsewhere, and Europe is left with a pristine set of rules for a market that no longer exists. Trump’s December executive order easing AI regulations is the only logical response for a nation that intends to actually produce things.
The Manhattan Logic of the Silicon Race
The current hysteria ignores the only fact that matters in a zero-sum game: the other side isn't pausing. Trump is correct that "whoever wins AI wins." This is not a debate about ethics in a vacuum; it is the Manhattan Project for the twenty-first century.
During the Manhattan Project, the United States did not pause because the technology was "potentially catastrophic." The existential threat wasn't the bomb itself, but the possibility that a strategic rival would possess it first. The mechanism is identical today. If the U.S. slows down to satisfy the anxieties of a "pro-human" conference, China—which Trump notes is doing "absolutely nothing to stand in the way of AI"—simply accelerates.
This is the same cold calculus that drove the United States-China trade war (2016-2020). You do not win a geopolitical struggle by apologizing for your capitalism or by handicapping your own champions. The numbers back the aggression: an ING report shows tech investment accounted for more than a third of all US economic expansion in the second quarter of 2026. To stifle that growth now is not "safety"; it is economic sabotage.
Brussels-Style Caution is a Strategic Surrender
The critics, including Stephen Witt, suggest we treat AI incidents like airplane crashes, handled by government investigators. This is the language of the bureaucrat, not the entrepreneur. It is the same spirit of over-caution that makes the European Commission a graveyard for ambition.
Trump’s insistence that the only guardrail needed is a "STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT" may sound arrogant, but it reflects a preference for decisive, centralized leadership over the suffocating sludge of committee-led regulation. We saw the efficacy of this approach during Operation Warp Speed, where the prioritization of deployment over red tape saved millions of lives and billions of dollars.
The path forward is clear. Trump will likely use his late-September meeting with President Xi Jinping to attempt a bilateral safety agreement—not out of a sudden love for global governance, but as a tactical move to ensure the U.S. maintains the lead. He will reject Sanders' pause bill because a pause is just a slow-motion surrender. He will likely lean on his "criminal and regulatory power" to punish those who actively sabotage U.S. competitiveness, regardless of whether they call themselves "angels" like Dario Amodei.
The choice is between a world where the U.S. leads the AI revolution or a world where it manages its own decline through a series of cautious directives. You cannot regulate your way to prosperity, and you cannot win a race by stopping to ask if the finish line is too scary. The only real risk is coming in second.