Elon Musk spent the past week navigating a split over AI safety, agreeing with rivals Dario Amodei and Sam Altman that foundation model labs should slow down, then facing pushback from President Donald Trump and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who argued companies need to move faster. Trump, whose most recent disclosure lists Nvidia and SpaceX shares, called runaway AI fears a "hoax."

At the All-In Summit on Tuesday, alongside former White House AI czar David Sacks, Musk instead urged companies to test each other's models before release, calling that preferable to heavy government regulation. "You can always escalate the amount of regulatory oversight, but it is very difficult to reduce it," he said virtually. "It does tend to be very much a one-way ratchet."

The Wall Street Journal reported Musk joined Huang and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in advising Trump to oppose an industry-funded regulator. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The week reflects Musk's long pattern of warning about AI risks while building AI businesses and resisting regulation. He funded DeepMind before Google acquired it in 2014, co-founded OpenAI in 2015, and later split with Altman. In 2023 he signed another pause letter and quietly incorporated xAI.

His safety record is mixed: Memphis data centers face pollution litigation, and xAI sued to block Minnesota and California regulations. Tyler Whitmer of the nonprofit Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology told CNBC that self-regulation won't protect the public. "We need real regulation that creates a level playing field for companies but also protects the public," he said, calling for government-enforceable third-party evaluators.

Source: CNBC