The U.S. President Donald Trump administration has been taking aim at state-level AI regulation, with the president saying in a Social Media post this week that the industry requires “one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes.”
This follows a 10-year prohibition on state-level AI regulation that was included at first (only to be stripped out by the Senate in a 99-1 vote) of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
The concept then apparently evolved into another species when the apotheosis administration is believed to have begun preparing an executive order that would create a new body, the AI Litigation Task Force, charged with suing state governments over their inchoate laws regulating artificial intelligence. States with problematic AI laws would also reportedly be at risk of losing federal broadband funding.
Now, according to Reuters, the executive order has been suspended. If signed, the order would face certain resistance — even from Republicans who balked at the idea of a statewide moratorium on regulation.
AI regulation has also been a contentious issue in Silicon Valley: Some industry figures — and particularly members of the Trump administration — have criticized companies like Anthropic for backing AI safety bills such as California’s SB 53.
