WASHINGTON — Trump outside tech adviser David Sacks on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, said recent civilization-end warnings and industry panic over artificial intelligence amount to a recycled “fear-mongering playbook” and a political ploy — echoing President Donald Trump’s Monday dismissal of AI-regulation alarms as a “hoax,” according to Reuters, the Washington Examiner, and an exclusive interview with CBS News.

Speaking by video at Politico’s Decoded Summit and separately to CBS, Sacks — co-chair of the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and former White House AI/crypto “czar” — argued public alarm is being amplified by advocacy campaigns, media coverage, and election-season incentives. “We’ve seen this playbook, this fear-mongering playbook, over and over again,” he told the Politico event, Reuters reported. To CBS’s Jo Ling Kent he said: “I think this is becoming a panic… We’re in an election season, and there is an incentive for political actors to try and amplify the fear.”

Sacks placed safety and liability on developers rather than new heavy federal rules. “First and foremost, it is on them to make their products safe,” he told CBS; if they cannot, “they should step aside for people who can.” Reuters reported he said companies would be held “liable” if problems arise and that new regulation is not needed. On Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s warnings, Sacks asked why firms act as if they cannot control the technology: “If you can’t control it, then don’t do it” — while adding he wants to “proceed safely” and does not want to stop development. He also warned that a U.S. pause would hand the race to China: if “we just pause all development, they will race ahead.”

The comments land as a counterpoint to last week’s industry fright cycle — including former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon’s resignation warning that builders believe AI “could kill us all by the end of the decade,” and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s line that the world is “right to be afraid” of AI (covered in our Sept. 15 Tech piece). Trump on Monday brushed aside new federal AI rules, saying the country needs only a strong president and calling executive pleas for regulation a “hoax.” Skepticism of panic-driven rulemaking is the rational default until someone shows a concrete failure mode — and puts their own capital and liability on the line instead of lobbying for a federal moat.

Dated Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026: Sacks frames AI doom talk as fear-mongering/political ploy; favors developer safety + liability over new regulation; China-competition caution; aligns with Trump’s “hoax” dismissal.

Sources