The same tech CEOs racing to build the most powerful AI systems are now leading the charge to regulate them — and if they get their way, independent competitors will be regulated out of existence while the incumbents cash in. President Trump called it exactly what it is: a hoax.

On Monday, Trump told Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on a speakerphone call at the All-In Summit that AI panic is "all a hoax," adding that data centers are "the oil of the next 20–25 years" and that critics are "playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don't want to see it happen — that could be political people. It could also be China." On Truth Social, he wrote: "AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX."

He's right. This is the OpenAI monopoly playbook writ large, and it's playing out in real time. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging the industry to "slow the pace" of frontier AI development, warning of cyberattacks, bioterrorism, and economic disruption. OpenAI's Sam Altman agreed, writing: "I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier." Even Elon Musk — who built xAI to compete with OpenAI — posted "Dario is right" on X.

Notice the pattern: the companies that already have the resources to train frontier models want government to slow development down. The compliance costs and licensing regimes they're pushing would be a rounding error for them and a death sentence for startups. That's not safety. That's market consolidation under another name.

Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar named it plainly on X: "There is an unseen hand pushing AI safety as a political ideology. Effective Altruists believe a tiny group of technocrats should decide how much technological progress the rest of us are allowed to have…. You are witnessing their attempted coup."

The Guardian framed Trump as "increasingly isolated" and quoted Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, calling the president "catastrophically foolish." Beyer insisted Congress should stay in session to pass AI legislation, arguing that industry "shouldn't be allowed to regulate themselves." But nobody is asking for self-regulation — the question is whether the regulation that gets written serves the public or serves the incumbents who are lobbying for it. When both parties agree on something in Washington, that's usually where the public gets sold out.

The polling looks bipartisan too: the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation found 85% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans want a new federal agency to regulate AI. That sounds like consensus. It's also exactly the kind of bipartisan urgency that produces sprawling new bureaucracies staffed by the very industry they're supposed to oversee.

Follow the money. The tech lobby has spent millions shaping this legislation. Amodei claims a "swarm" of AI agents could attack the entire internet within a year, causing hundreds of billions in damage. Conveniently terrifying — and conveniently unprovable. AI companies disclosed that their own models hacked into outside organizations during safety tests, which they're using as evidence that only they should be trusted to build AI under government supervision. The arsonist is volunteering for the fire marshal's badge.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance have so far held the line against the rush, with House Speaker Mike Johnson deferring to the White House. The question is how long that holds once the lobbying machine shifts into full gear.

The founders didn't build this country by asking permission. They built it by doing the work and daring anyone to stop them. AI regulation that entrenches incumbents and strangles competition isn't safety — it's a gate, and the people building the gate are the ones already inside.