Policy Dive: AI in the First Week of Trump

By Emily Wolfteich, Senior Industry Analyst at Government Business Council

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On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) to “remove barriers to American AI innovation” and “take action to enhance America’s AI leadership.” This EO follows Trump’s day-one “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” a mandate that revokes 78 Biden-era executive orders. Among these was 2023’s Executive Order 14110, for the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.

The rescission of 14110 and subsequent new EO were not unexpected. The administration and Republican party writ large contend that EO 14110 was “dangerous” and promoted “left-wing ideas,” such as setting guardrails around privacy and discrimination and requiring developers to disclose potential security risks to the government. Where does federal guidance stand with the new President, and what does his new Executive Order mean for Americans?

The Basics of Trump’s First-Week EO

Revocation of Biden-era AI policies: The order revokes existing AI policies and directives it calls “burdensome requirements” on the private sector that “threaten American technological leadership,” particularly those established under Executive Order 14110.

Commitment to global AI leadership: It emphasizes the United States’ policy to sustain and enhance its global dominance in AI to promote “human flourishing,” economic competitiveness, and national security.

Development of an AI action plan: The order mandates the creation of an action plan within 180 days to achieve the stated policy goals. This task is assigned to key presidential advisors, including the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (Michael Kratsios), the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto (David Sacks), and the National Security Advisor (Mike Waltz).

Review and revision of existing guidance: It instructs relevant officials to review all policies, directives, regulations, and actions taken under the revoked Executive Order 14110. Any actions found to be inconsistent with the new policy are to be suspended, revised, or rescinded. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is directed to revise specific memoranda (M-24-10 and M-24-18) within 60 days to ensure consistency with the new AI policy.

Overall, the EO is vague, focusing on repealing rather than replacing with substantive guidance – that will have to wait several months until the Action Plan and new OMB guidance is released.

The Rundown

Given the EO and other statements made by the new administration, what can we expect going forward?

Likely to change:

Increased funding for AI infrastructure.

On day two of his presidency, Trump announced the Stargate Initiative, a potential $500 billion investment into a private-sector deal helmed by OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank that aims to create thousands of new jobs in AI-related industries. It is unclear exactly how much of this investment will be government-funded – so far, Softbank and OpenAI have committed to investing $15b each, with no investment from the government (and snarky infighting among AI leaders, including Elon Musk). While the project’s end goals are commercial, the Department of Defense sees Stargate as a potentially valuable partner, and the administration has called this investment their “Manhattan Project” for AI.

Tighter relationships between government and private industry.

The Stargate deal is not the only evidence of cozier relationships between Big Tech and the government. The administration has made it evident that American policy on AI will be heavily influenced by the tech industry. Big Tech’s significant presence at his inauguration and his role in announcing Stargate indicate an unprecedented role for large tech companies in shaping American policy around AI.

Regulation.

The administration, and particularly AI Czar David Sacks, has made it clear they believe regulation hurts innovation. The administration will likely prioritize speed over caution in an effort to keep America at the forefront of AI development. In particular, the rescission of EO 14110 means that companies are no longer required to disclose potential risks of their algorithms with the government, a mandate that critics described as confusing and arbitrary but that proponents argued was necessary for security.

Consideration of civil rights.

The AI Bill of Rights, introduced under Biden, sought to guide the use of automated systems that could impact civil liberties, equal opportunities, and access to critical resources, but it is unclear whether this will remain intact – it has already been removed from whitehouse.gov. The new EO specifically seeks to eliminate equity provisions and oversight of AI systems that have the potential to be rights- or safety-impacting. This will likely have significant impacts on bipartisan efforts to enshrine civil rights within federal AI policy, as well as far-reaching impacts on the civil rights of Americans.

Not likely to change:

Federal land for AI data centers.

The administration plans to keep a last-minute Biden EO to accelerate AI infrastructure development on federal land. The order asks the Departments of Defense and Energy to each identify three sites to open to private-sector-run AI data centers.

Some previous federal AI guidance.

For now, some pieces of AI guidance (including last-minute Biden executive orders) remain on the books. Given their focus on cybersecurity and infrastructure, two crucial building blocks for building US AI dominance, it seems unlikely that they will be revoked. These include:

Executive Order 14144, “Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation’s Cybersecurity” (2025)

The National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act (2020)

The Bipartisan House Task Force Report on Artificial Intelligence (2024)

Executive Order 14141, “Advancing United States Leadership in Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure” (2025)

Unclear:

The role of government-based AI institutions. The AI Safety Institute (housed within NIST) and the NAIRR pilot project (NSF) were both launched under the Biden administration. Both enjoy bipartisan support in Congress and from the tech industry. However, their future is uncertain. The new EO specifically cites “private sector innovation” and “acquisition of AI,” with little discussion of federally directed development, though it does cite Trump’s 2021 doubling of federal R&D and investment into research institutes.

Chief AI Officers. EO 14110 mandated the appointment of an agency CAIO, with further guidance from OMB, and since then over fifty have been appointed across the 24 largest agencies. With the rescission of 14110, the future of this position is uncertain, and all federal sites referencing CAIOs have been taken down. However, there have already been bipartisan efforts in Congress to codify the CAIO position in law, and the position has been lauded by private industry as necessary AI leadership within federal agencies.

Tech workers in the federal workforce. The federal government, which had already been struggling to attract top AI talent, may see another hurdle as Trump orders federal workers back into the office, removing telework-eligible positions that were largely seen as an enticement for tech talent. For the moment, all web pages supporting the AI Talent Surge, including job pages, had been removed from federal sites. It is unclear whether the administration intends to resume its search for AI experts, or contract these positions out to private industry.

Small business competition. The administration’s initial turn toward tech giants, as well as the revocation of DEIA policies, may signal future impacts on procurement policies that promote women, minority, or veteran-owned businesses.

What’s Next?

New guidance. The EO directs OMB to revise and reissue rules around AI acquisition and governance within 60 days, and a broader AI Action plan to be completed within six months.

Increased state-level AI regulations: State-level AI laws are likely to play a much larger role in regulation without federal oversight. Colorado, Utah, and Illinois have already enacted legislation focused on AI protections; New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia may follow suit.

Increased focus on compliance: Without federal regulatory standards for AI use, ensuring that AI systems comply with other laws around data privacy and usage will become even more important, as litigation may become a replacement for regulation.

The Takeaway

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Trump’s view of AI development has changed even from his first term, when his administration wrote that AI development must happen “while maintaining the safety, security, civil liberties, privacy, and confidentiality protections we all expect.” His new Executive Order, combined with virulent takedowns of any indication of equity or anti-bias efforts across the government, indicates a preference for policies that will prioritize speed over safety, acquiesce to the desires of Big Tech at the expense of the environment and civil rights, and strip the government of much-needed guidance in how to implement AI safely. For the moment, the EO appears to be more of a blunt instrument than a thoughtful progression, creating more chaos than opportunity. It remains to be seen how the AI Action Plan and OMB guidance will address this vacuum of leadership.

Sir Demis Hassabis, the Nobel-Prize winning chief of Google DeepMind, warned in an interview about full-speed, guardrail-free AI development, saying “There’s much more at stake here than just companies or products […] it’s the future of humanity, the human condition and where we want to go as a society.” Without measures in place, AI models have the potential to codify racism, sexism and homophobia, and income inequality, exacerbating existing cultural, class, and global divisions. States will likely step up to implement their own guidelines, resulting in an American patchwork of regulations that will create concerns (and lawsuits) around data usage and privacy, civil rights, and discrimination across state lines.

As the AI race heats up, with Chinese competitors outperforming US tech behemoths, the administration clearly feels pressure to maintain dominance. However, while the EO states that its goal is to “secure a brighter future for all Americans,” the winners — at least of this first iteration — are technology companies whose responsibility is to their stakeholders, not the American people.

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