Former White House 'AI czar' David Sacks discusses AI regulation, competition with China. the risks of advanced AI-powered 'cyber weapons’ on ‘Kudlow.’
FormerWhite House"AI czar" David Sacks warned Monday. overregulation of artificial intelligence could erode America’s lead over China in the global race for AI dominance.
"If you try to have an FDA for AI. there are some people who want to go that far, then I think we could lose this AI race to China," he said Monday on "Kudlow." "We're only six to nine months ahead of China. So really, every month counts."
His remarks come after PresidentDonald Trumpsigned an executive order last week establishing a voluntary framework for AI companies to share certain advanced models with the federal government before wider public release.
US President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 14. 2026.(Kenny HOLSTON / POOL / AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Sacks. a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur, advocated for alighter approach to AI regulationand cautioned that adding too many guardrails risks stifling innovation at a critical point in the competition with Beijing.
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He likened Washington's "tremendous" desire to regulate AI to that ofclimate change.
"AI has become the new climate change," he argued. "It's this imminent catastrophe that is requiring all this government intervention. But there's very little evidence to support it."
"We're open to evidence – if there's actually a problem, we should do something about it. But I don't think we should do it in this knee-jerk way," he continued.
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While Sacks admitted that some frontierAI models– including Anthropic’s Mythos. which he described as an "at the level of a cyber weapon" – present serious cybersecurity concerns, he also cautioned against the "moral panic" surrounding emerging technology.
"There is this panic, almost like a moral panic, around AI," he told host Larry Kudlow. "And I'm just afraid that we might overreact. shoot ourselves in the foot and thenhand this incredible technology to China.
David Sacks, White House Artificial Intelligence (AI). Crypto czar, during The White House Digital Assets Summit in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, March 7, 2025.(Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Sacks also pushed back on concerns that AI will take jobs from average Americans. pointing to recentlabor marketstrength from a strong May jobs report.
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"There's been a lot of claims that AI is gonna create some sort of imminent job apocalypse,. we're seeing the exact opposite right now," the former AI czar argued.
"We just had this gangbuster jobs report in May, something like 172,000 new jobs, twice what all the economists were expecting,. a lot of that is because of AI."
Sacks said a unified federal playbook forAI governancewould be preferable to a patchwork. state-by-state regulations that have been guard railing the technology since its emergence.
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"What President Trump has called for isone rulebook. And I think if we can get that. if we work with Congress to work out a compromise, then that would be better than patchwork from the states," he told FOX Business.
Trump isreportedly set to meetwith executives from leading AI companies at the White House this week as the administration weighs its next steps on AI policy.
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