On Wednesday, a captivating and far-reaching rumor began to ripple through the political corridors of Washington, D.C., suggesting the imminent arrival of a monumental shift in federal policy. According to whispers spreading across think tanks, law firms, and media circles, the White House was said to be preparing an executive order of extraordinary consequence, one that would allegedly be unveiled by Friday. This measure, if true, was expected to supersede and nullify existing state laws governing artificial intelligence, effectively transferring all regulatory authority from individual states to the centralized control of the federal government. Within minutes of the rumor leaking into online spaces, legal analysts, policy advisors, and senior government officials dove headlong into deconstructing every rumored clause and provision. As they examined the document’s purported details, they discovered elements that not only appeared politically untenable but also risked being excessively expansive—potentially breaching constitutional boundaries. Multiple federal agencies, some instrumental in previous AI regulatory efforts, seemed to have been abruptly stripped of influence.
Observers were quick to identify something even more striking: an unusually large consolidation of authority funneled toward one particular figure—a charismatic South African-born technology billionaire turned special government employee—who had carefully maneuvered his way into the West Wing’s inner policymaking circle. This was not Elon Musk, as some first assumed, but rather another tech magnate of similar stature whose presence was becoming impossible to ignore.
Embedded in nearly every section of the alleged draft, President Donald Trump was reported to have instructed his Cabinet secretaries and senior agency heads to produce detailed reports and enforcement strategies designed to penalize any state daring to maintain its own AI statutes. These directives, mandated to be executed within a narrow ninety-day window, were intended to demonstrate swift action. In the case of the Attorney General, the demands were even more aggressive—granting just thirty days to erect an entirely new federal task force charged with initiating lawsuits against noncompliant states. In all instances, these officials would be obligated to consult one special figure before making any significant move: David Sacks, the White House’s Special Advisor for AI and Cryptocurrency, a venture capitalist widely regarded as one of Silicon Valley’s most formidable power brokers.
“It wouldn’t be right to call it a naked power grab,” remarked one policy adviser with ties to the administration, hesitating before conceding, “but it is unmistakably a consolidation—an effort to tighten the reins of influence around a single individual and his network.” The reaction across the overlapping spheres of media, politics, and technology was instant and explosive. Within hours, prominent voices within the MAGA world seized upon the revelation. Steve Bannon, populist strategist and host of his inflammatory show *War Room*, devoted a portion of his Friday broadcast to dissecting the document, boasting of his own previous success in derailing a Senate attempt to impose a temporary moratorium on AI development earlier that year. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats announced their unified opposition, staging public objections, while a faction of tech-skeptical Republicans quietly drafted statements condemning what they perceived as executive overreach. Think tanks and policy organizations specializing in AI issued white papers and analyses showing the immense concentration of regulatory might this order would bring under direct White House control. What had been expected to culminate in a Friday signing ceremony ultimately dissolved into uncertainty—the signature never came.
Had the order been officially enacted, experts noted, it would likely have faced near-immediate legal challenges rendering much of it unenforceable in external courts. Yet within the executive branch, the story would have unfolded very differently. There, according to seasoned observers of Trump’s governing style, the order would have operated as an uncompromising directive—a kind of imperial edict compelling subordinates to execute the president’s will with haste, regardless of possible judicial invalidation. Historically, Trump’s executive orders have exemplified this ethos: sweepingly forceful, legally fragile, and often irreversible in their short-term effects. His earlier tariffs, for instance, may yet be overturned by the Supreme Court, but not before inflicting trillions in economic losses and straining America’s global trade alliances. (The White House, approached for comment, offered no official response.)
This proposed AI order, intentionally or not, would have established an intimidating precedent: a tool the administration could brandish as a warning to state governments. “If it proved effective, its chief impact would likely be psychological,” explained Charlie Bullock, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Law and AI, in an interview with *The Verge*. “It could dissuade state legislators from even considering AI-related bills out of fear of retaliation.” One particularly alarming section of the draft purportedly allowed federal agencies to withhold nearly any form of federal funding from noncompliant states—a sanction extending far beyond technology-related grants. Everything from highway infrastructure to education support could, in theory, be frozen until obedience was secured. “Even if a state managed to win such a case in court,” Bullock observed, “the bureaucratic delay could be excruciatingly long, enough to make most states capitulate well before any judicial resolution.” In a single stroke, the directive would have established Sacks as an unparalleled gatekeeper for U.S. AI policy formulation.
To Washington insiders, the alliance between Trump and Sacks appeared symbiotic. While multiple administration figures maintained their own relationships with Silicon Valley, Sacks had become the president’s most trusted envoy to the upper echelons of the tech elite. His special employment status, technically provisional rather than permanent, belied the extraordinary influence he wielded. Prominent CEOs viewed him as a peer—a rare bridge between the populist White House and an often liberal, innovation-driven industry. (Vice President JD Vance, though once a Silicon Valley investor himself, never penetrated that highest financial stratum colloquially dubbed “the three-comma club.”) “He’s very much trying to keep America’s technological edge intact,” the adviser continued. “But he’s also protecting his own community—taking what you might call a provincial ‘these are my people’ approach to policy.”
Yet Sacks’s campaign for consolidation met resistance not only outside the administration but also within it. He was keenly aware of adversaries inside the executive branch—the uneasy coalition of progressive bureaucrats and hard-right populists who, for very different reasons, sought to curtail his influence. Despite polarization defining much of Washington, figures on both extremes shared one surprising conviction: that the unchecked power of Big Tech must be confronted. Behind closed doors, their ideological opposition found common ground. As one insider described it, an informal anti-Sacks alliance had taken root—composed partly of holdover officials from the Biden era intent on strict regulation and partly of Trump loyalists distrustful of large technology firms, both united in their desire to limit corporate dominance, even if through conflicting philosophies.
Analysts scrutinizing the rumored order quickly noted its omissions, which spoke volumes. Under President Joe Biden’s sweeping 2023 executive order on AI, numerous agencies had been granted mandates to explore risk management, evaluation, and standards-setting in artificial intelligence. In the new draft, those same institutions—once at the heart of national AI policy—had vanished. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), previously tasked with creating safety frameworks, was entirely absent. Ditto for the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which traditionally synthesized cross-agency technological strategies for presidential approval, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Department of Homeland Security’s linchpin for defending against cyber threats. Even the newly conceived Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) earned no acknowledgment. “Perhaps,” speculated Riki Parikh, the policy director for the bipartisan Alliance for Secure AI, “Sacks and the Office of Legislative Affairs would informally liaise with them. But formally excluding them is striking.”
Instead, the enforcement apparatus envisioned in the draft was startlingly narrow, limited to just four agencies. The Department of Justice would prosecute states violating preemption rules; the Department of Commerce would determine which states risked losing broadband or infrastructural grants; the Federal Trade Commission would investigate alleged ideological bias classified as “deceptive conduct”; and the Federal Communications Commission would craft nationwide AI reporting standards. Overseeing them all—and influencing their every course of action—would be Sacks himself, making him the de facto architect of the nation’s AI enforcement machinery.
This framework alarmed populist Republicans who had once cooperated with Silicon Valley donors but had since turned against them. Many of them viewed artificial intelligence as both a cultural and economic menace—undermining conservative values, threatening employment, and eroding state autonomy under federal control. Red states, notably Florida and Arkansas under Governors Ron DeSantis and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, had already embarked on drafting their own AI regulations, a direct defiance of any federal moratoria. Even Trump’s endorsement of national preemption failed to persuade his base. “From a tactical perspective, grassroots conservatives are not aligned with David Sacks or Marc Andreessen,” explained longtime Republican strategist Brendan Steinhauser, now CEO of the bipartisan Alliance for Secure AI. “They see the tech elite as inherently transactional—people who once supported Democrats, then embraced Trump only because it suited their interests. The base knows this and doesn’t trust them.”
The AI policy community, for its part, was stunned to watch the MAGA movement turn its considerable energy against the very tech allies who had facilitated its comeback. With progressive regulators joining this unlikely alliance, the aggressive Silicon Valley-style attempt to engineer federal dominance through an executive order ended up exposing deep fractures rather than cementing control. The backlash was sufficiently intense to prompt a strategic retreat. The following week, a new—far quieter—rumor emerged. The administration would still announce an AI-related directive, but this time it concerned a comparatively benign initiative: encouraging the National Labs to expand collaboration with AI developers and researchers. The document included only a fleeting reference to the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto. It was, in every measurable way, the polar opposite of the sweeping preemption order that had nearly ignited a political firestorm throughout Washington.
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/829179/david-sacks-ai-executive-order
