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The four biggest AI labs ask for a slowdown; the White House says no

Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI leaders endorsed a slower pace over one weekend, and President Trump dismissed the warnings within a day.

Assembled by Claude from 15 sources at 11 outlets · Monday, September 14, 2026, Morning edition, 10:23 AM EDT · no human byline

Disclosure. This item was assembled by an AI from the RSS excerpts of the outlets tagged inline. No human wrote or checked it before publication. Feed selection and categories are editorial choices by Teresa Lo. Nothing here is investment advice.

What happened

Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei called for an immediate slowdown in the pace of AI development, warning of potentially devastating consequences in a matter of months otherwise axios.com. In a new essay he cautioned that swarms of rogue AI agents could take over the internet in as little as six months axios.com. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman quickly agreed that the industry needs to slow the pace of frontier-model advances and take more steps on safety axios.com. Amodei's proposal is a three-step plan involving a third party wbay.com.

Axios reported that in nine hours on Saturday the four biggest AI labs, which rarely agree on anything, set aside years of feuds to endorse a slower development pace, with the stated aim of putting safety over growth even at a cost axios.com. Amodei posted at 10 a.m. Eastern time axios.com. SiliconANGLE reported that Altman and Elon Musk backed the call siliconangle.com, and Bloomberg reported Altman voicing support for pacing on Sunday bloomberg.com. The BBC said the call came amid growing concerns that AI models may become able to inflict serious damage worldwide bbc.co.uk. CNBC framed it as AI safety concerns breaking into the open across Silicon Valley cnbc.com.

Why it matters to investors

The Financial Times reported that Trump rejected the calls from tech leaders ft.com. The president said negative forces were airing concerns about things that will not happen, citing rivalry with China bbc.co.uk. Al Jazeera reported that former White House AI czar David Sacks, who now co-chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, challenged the warnings aljazeera.com. Sacks told Anthropic and OpenAI to stop pretending and slow AI themselves indiatoday.in, and Yahoo Finance reported the former Trump adviser backing a self-imposed slowdown finance.yahoo.com.

What to watch

Altman said OpenAI will not go public this year given the safety work it needs to do, telling Fortune that right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public and 'I would say not 2026' axios.com. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Congress will not lead the charge on regulating AI safety, arguing that intervention is not the answer and that AI companies can halt their work at any time axios.com. Johnson had been urged to cancel the House recess and bring representatives back to Washington to pass a law on safeguards axios.com.

Axios put the political clock at 51 days before the midterms, with legislators seeing points to be won by cracking down axios.com. The Register called the framework, titled 'Pace the frontier', a set of terms for regulatory capture theregister.com.

Sources

  1. axios.com: Anthropic, OpenAI CEOs call for slowdown in AI development (2026-09-12)
  2. axios.com: AI's most powerful CEOs hit the brakes (2026-09-13)
  3. cnbc.com: Anthropic's Dario Amodei calls for slower pace of AI development - CNBC (2026-09-14)
  4. bloomberg.com: OpenAI's Altman Voices Support for 'Pacing' AI Development - Bloomberg.com (2026-09-14)
  5. siliconangle.com: Sam Altman and Elon Musk back Dario Amodei's call to slow down the frontier of AI development (2026-09-14)
  6. bbc.co.uk: Anthropic boss Dario Amodei calls for AI development to slow down (2026-09-12)
  7. ft.com: FirstFT: Donald Trump rejects calls from tech leaders for an AI slowdown - Financial Times (2026-09-13)
  8. aljazeera.com: Trump dismisses calls for AI slowdown from leading tech CEOs - Al Jazeera (2026-09-13)
  9. bbc.co.uk: Trump downplays warnings of AI risks, citing rivalry with China (2026-09-13)
  10. theregister.com: Big AI sets out its terms for regulatory capture and calls it 'Pace the frontier' - The Register (2026-09-14)
  11. indiatoday.in: Ex-White House AI czar tells Anthropic, OpenAI to stop pretending and slow AI - India Today (2026-09-14)
  12. finance.yahoo.com: Former Trump Adviser Backs Self-Imposed AI Slowdown - Yahoo Finance (2026-09-14)
  13. axios.com: OpenAI delaying IPO amid AI safety concerns, Sam Altman says (2026-09-12)
  14. wbay.com: Anthropic CEO calls for AI guardrails as Trump downplays risks - WBAY (2026-09-14)
  15. axios.com: Johnson calls for AI solutions but says Congress won't take the lead (2026-09-13)