Trump cites Justice Department, FBI as guardrails against artificial intelligence risks

US President Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday that law enforcement agencies will serve as primary checks against artificial intelligence abuses, arguing that federal oversight should rely on criminal investigations rather than industry regulations that could harm economic growth

“I have a guardrail. You know what the guardrail is? The Department of Justice,” Trump said in an interview Monday with Time magazine. “If they do bad things, I have a DOJ, I have an FBI. That’s your guardrail over here.”

Trump warned that seeking government regulation could put domestic technology firms out of business, maintaining that while the sector represents a “whole new world” with potential downsides, companies should police their own conduct. “I don’t have to destroy the industry. We’re making a lot of money with that industry,” he added.

After a dinner with Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei, Trump noted that the executive’s perspectives were “much different” than media portrayals and Amodei’s thoughts are only “a little bit different” from his.

Trump advocated for domestic expansion of computing infrastructure, warning municipalities that rejecting facilities would result in severe local economic stagnation.

“I said, if you want to be poor, you want to have no money, if you don’t want to have a job, and if you want to live in a crime-infested area, squalor, all the things that go along with it, you should not have a data center,” he said.

The president maintained that data centers generate municipal wealth and ease household burdens.

Trump also expressed frustration about American technology firms building large infrastructure abroad, criticizing European efforts to attract facilities away from the US market. Singling out a major Google facility in Finland, Trump said he is “not happy about that.”

Framing data center capacity as a national security imperative, Trump warned that hesitation inside the US would forfeit computing dominance to geopolitical rivals.

“If we don’t build them, they’ll be built someplace else,” Trump cautioned, pointing directly to Beijing’s computing ambitions.

“I know China is totally over it. China wants every data center you’re going to have,” he said. “I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want China to have all these data centers.”