Trump hints at public ‘contribution’ from US AI firms

US President Donald Trump suggested on Monday that leading American artificial intelligence companies would make a public “contribution” to the country, offering few details but fuelling speculation about a greater government role in the booming industry.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday morning, Trump said tech companies “making tremendous amounts of money” will be making “a contribution to the people of our country”.

“We’re going to have guardrails … You know that. But [AI] can be used for tremendous good. And mostly good, and some bad,” he said.

Trump suggested discussions were under way within his administration over such public “contributions”, telling Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, “You know what I’m talking about”, before declining to explain what form they might take.

The remarks come weeks after the Trump administration tightened its oversight of frontier AI companies, reflecting growing concerns over national security and Chinese access to cutting-edge US technology.

Last month, it issued an emergency export control directive that forced Claude model developer Anthropic to suspend global access to its latest flagship models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5.