Conservative group pushes Trump to ditch Big Tech over AI concerns
CEOs of several Big Tech companies attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration in early 2025. Trump had promised a lighter touch in how the government regulated new technologies, like artificial intelligence, in his second term.
Over more than a year in office, Trump maintained his hands-off approach to AI, signing an executive order prohibiting states from enacting their own AI regulation. While the order didn’t exactly do anything, it did show that the administration still believed the best way to win an AI arms race was to allow companies to work without hindrance, even when there were security concerns.
“To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation,” the executive order stated. “But excessive State regulation thwarts this imperative.”
Now, there appears to be a splintering within Trump’s administration between the Big Tech-backed politicians and others on the far right who oppose its laissez-faire approach.
Who are the two groups?
Many high-ranking officials within the second Trump White House have ties to Silicon Valley. Vice President JD Vance has close connections to Peter Thiel, a founder of many major tech companies, including PayPal, Palantir and one of the first outside investors in Facebook.
Before going into politics, Vance lived in San Francisco and worked as a tech venture capitalist. Vance worked under Thiel’s venture capital firm, Mithril Capital, from 2016 to 2017.
Big Tech saw big things in Trump’s second presidency, according to Public Citizen, which reported that tech firms spent hundreds of millions of dollars on Trump and other Republicans in 2024 and 2025.
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is another major Big Tech executive connected to the Trump administration, even more so than Thiel. Musk led Trump’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency, which wasn’t legally part of the government but still implemented massive cost-cutting measures in an advisory role.
Now, a new faction within the White House is emerging, led by former White House advisor Steve Bannon and other conservative anti-AI activists Amy Kremer and Brendan Steinhauser.
The three, along with more than 50 other conservatives, wrote a letter urging the president to reconsider his hands-off approach to the emerging technology.
Bannon no longer works for the White House but still hosts his influential “War Room” podcast. Axios reports that he has repeatedly warned that AI could take jobs away from Americans.
“This letter takes us next level,” Bannon told Axios. “The letter lays out [that] we must have mandatory testing and government approval.”
What is the new AI proposal?
Humans First, the group that wrote the letter, is asking Trump to require the government to review and approve every powerful AI model before release. Axios reports that officials who support testing and evaluating models have not supported the idea of government approval of AI models.
The group said AI is quickly becoming a major part of all industries, including the military, and the government should approve the systems that assist “in designing bioweapons, breaking into critical infrastructure, or manipulating financial markets.”
“For this reason, we support proposed policies that require mandatory testing, evaluation, vetting, and government approval of potentially dangerous frontier AI systems before they are deployed,” the letter states. “This is the sort of strong, principled, and pragmatic leadership you have shown throughout your presidency.”
While the group did not single out anyone in particular, it did criticize Big Tech CEOs and the way they operate.
“America did not become the greatest nation in the world by allowing unelected elites to experiment on the public without safeguards or accountability,” the group wrote. “America First means American strength, American security, and the protection of our people first.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
