Zuckerberg Lobbied Trump Directly Against a National AI Regulator

Mark Zuckerberg called President Trump during the week of August 17 to voice opposition to a proposed national AI regulatory body — a rare direct industry intervention that highlights how one-on-one conversations between Trump and tech CEOs have become an unofficial veto point in White House policymaking. The call was initiated by Trump, not Zuckerberg, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The proposal under debate inside the White House would create an independent AI oversight organization modeled on FINRA — the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority — which polices broker-dealer firms under SEC supervision. The concept was popularized by Nobel Prize-winning Google DeepMind scientist Demis Hassabis, who pitched it in a July essay and briefed White House officials this summer. The envisioned body would review and stress-test advanced AI models for risks before public deployment, funded by industry membership fees.

Zuckerberg stopped short of demanding Trump kill the idea, but argued that anyone appointed to lead such a body should reflect Trump's own light-touch philosophy on AI. In a public August essay, Zuckerberg went further, warning that any policy delaying a model's release — even by a single month — would meaningfully erode American technological leadership over China. Despite the call, the FINRA-style regulator remains under active consideration at the White House.

The episode is part of a broader pattern. In May, David Sacks — Trump's former AI and crypto czar — called Trump the morning of a planned AI executive order signing and convinced him to cancel it entirely. Sacks opposes the FINRA model, dismissing it as a 'DMV for AI' where models wait in a queue for testing. Instead, Sacks has been promoting a voluntary, industry-led ratings body modeled on the Motion Picture Association — a system he says has Elon Musk's backing — which would issue AI 'ratings' similar to film classifications rather than enforcing binding pre-release review.

The major AI labs — OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic — have largely stayed quiet publicly, though Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark posted favorably about the FINRA concept on X in July. White House officials are now weighing the two competing frameworks: a formal FINRA-style watchdog versus a voluntary MPA-style industry group. Critics of the FINRA model worry that even voluntary standards could eventually be codified into hard law, creating the regulatory regime opponents sought to avoid.