California AI regulation in the crosshairs of Trump’s executive order

President Trump signed an executive order today to discourage state governments from regulating artificial intelligence and urge Congress to pass legislation that protects against such regulations.

The order is likely to hit California the hardest, which since 2016 has passed more laws to regulate artificial intelligence than any other state, according to a Stanford report from earlier this year. California is also home to the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies, including Anthropic, Google, Nvidia and OpenAI.

Trump’s order would require the heads of the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department to challenge state AI laws. It also calls for the development of model AI legislation to preempt or supersede state legislation, unless those laws address child safety, data center infrastructure, state government use or AI, or other yet-to-be-determined areas.

For states that continue to regulate AI, the order instructs federal agencies to explore whether they can limit grants for them, including by withdrawing funding known as broadband access and deployment capital. California has potential $1.8 billion in broadband funding on a map, much of which was committed to specific projects earlier this month and is set to provide Internet access to more than 300,000 people.

In a social media post earlier this week and remarks from the Oval Office Trump said today that the executive order was written to prevent businesses from complying with the laws of multiple states and that it threatens America’s competitive advantage over other nations. Investors in tech startups, such as Menlo Park venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, have called on the president to limit government regulation of AI and celebrated the signing of the President’s order.

Trump’s order specifically criticized a Colorado law that requires testing and disclosure of AI that makes subsequent decisions about people’s lives and seeks to prevent discrimination, a standard California law may repeat next year.

Among the recently passed laws in California that federal agencies can challenge are:

Members of Congress routinely cite California as an example of rampant AI regulation, but lawmakers from both major parties have supported AI regulation, with more than 70 laws passed by 27 states this year, according to Transparency Coalition report. California once again led the nation in passing roughly a dozen laws, with Texas, Montana, Utah and Arkansas following with the most AI bills signed this year.

The executive order comes after the second attempt in Congress to oppose state AI laws that did not reach last week. Republican members of Congress were the first to try to ban regulation of AI by state governments for 10 years this spring, an initiative derailed in part because of concerns over the fate of a law that protects Tennessee country musicians and others who seek to block child sexual abuse material.

Polls show Californians and Americans support AI regulation. A Carnegie Endowment California survey published in October found that nearly 80 percent of Californians strongly or somewhat agree that when it comes to AI, safety should be a priority over innovation. A September Gallup poll also found that four in five Americans want lawmakers to prioritize safety over innovation, even if that means technology advances more slowly.

In addition to endangering the lives of children, artificial intelligence can lead to false arrests, discriminate against job applicants and employees and deny people government benefits or healthcare to which they are entitled. Technology is also power-hungry, potentially leading to upsideelectricity tariffs and jeopardizing clean energy goals. It also needs large amounts of fresh water for cooling systems in data centers. The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that filed a lawsuit to stop a California data center project a year ago, called the executive order an early Christmas present for big tech.

Opponents of the executive order say it leaves Californians vulnerable to harm.

“Make no mistake: This order does not create new protections, it removes them. This is not governance. This is a dereliction of duty wrapped up in yet another distraction from the crumbling MAGA movement and a president who does not understand the real dangers of rapidly advancing technology,” said state Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, in statement last monthwhen a draft of the executive order was leaked to the press.

In the California Legislature, enthusiasm for AI regulation shows little sign of waning. More than 100 film industry workers from groups such as the Animation Guild and SAG-AFTRA appeared at a committee hearing earlier this week on protecting the work of creators. Many spoke in favor of a a bill that would require AI companies to disclose what copyright material they use to train their models.

Animators Guild president Danny Lynn said at the hearing AI threatens nearly 40,000 jobs in the California film, television and animation industry.

“L.A. is bleeding before my eyes,” Lynn told state lawmakers.

In response to the executive order, Lynn told CalMatters that Colorado’s law, which aims to prevent discrimination and protect working-class people, doesn’t give her confidence that the legislation the president is calling for will address the concerns of creators whose work is used to train generative AI models.

“It’s pretty obvious that if we had a federal government that actually focused on regulating this technology, then the states wouldn’t feel the need to step in and create state-specific legislation,” she said.