President Donald Trump has delayed signing an AI security executive order that would require government evaluation of AI models before release, citing concerns it could hinder US leadership in AI.
President Trump delayed signing an executive order that would have required pre-release government security reviews of AI models, citing dissatisfaction with the order's language.
# Trump delays AI security executive order: ‘I don’t want to get in the way of that leading’ | TechCrunch
Source: [https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/21/trump-delays-ai-security-executive-order-i-dont-want-to-get-in-the-way-of-that-leading/](https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/21/trump-delays-ai-security-executive-order-i-dont-want-to-get-in-the-way-of-that-leading/)
In Brief
Posted:
10:30 AM PDT · May 21, 2026
**Image Credits:**Anna Moneymaker / Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump has delayed signing an executive order that would allow the government to evaluate AI models before they’re released\.
Trump claimed he is not happy with the language of the order: “I didn’t like certain aspects of it,” he told the White House press pool\. “We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that leading\.”
The unofficial reason: Not enough tech CEOs could make it to Washington, D\.C\. on short notice, according to[several](https://www.axios.com/2026/05/21/white-house-postpones-ai-eo-signing)[reports](https://x.com/alexeheath/status/2057484568727552259)\. And what’s an executive order signing without a photo op?
The anticipated executive order would have tasked the Office of the National Cyber Director and other agencies with developing a process to evaluate AI models for security before their release\. This is partly in response to concerns from the release of Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s GPT\-5\.5 Cyber — both of which can quickly find and exploit security vulnerabilities\.
One of the key sticking points in the EO’s language, per[CNN](https://us.cnn.com/2026/05/20/tech/ai-executive-order-trump-white-house), is a proposed requirement for AI companies to share advanced models with the government between 14 and 90 days ahead of launch\.
Trump said he was concerned that the EO’s language today “could have been a blocker\.”
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