Speaker Mike Johnson said a meeting at the White House with executives for major artificial intelligence companies could happen as early as the end of this week or early next week, with pressure growing on Congress to set guardrails around the expanding technology.
“It will be soon,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “I think either end of this week or early next week. But wait and see.”
Johnson also suggested President Donald Trump will be at the meeting which has yet to be scheduled. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It comes after three CEOs of the nation’s leading AI labs — Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI — all warned over the weekend that there must be mechanisms put in place to slow down the rapid pace of AI advancements or risk catastrophe as severe as eventual human extinction.
“I called for a meeting of the platform providers,” said Johnson, who called Sunday for Trump and AI executives to “go in a big room, close the door and sort this out.”
Several lawmakers on Capitol Hill have introduced bills to address the current lack of federal regulations on the industry and have re-upped their pleas for their measures to be considered in light of the latest warnings. Trump, meanwhile, has posted more than once on Truth Social decrying any effort that could cede ground to China in the race to further develop AI technology.
Johnson continued Monday to remain noncommittal on whether the House will consider any AI safety legislation, including before the midterms, saying that he expects the upcoming White House meeting will include “a deliberate discussion about the responsibility of the companies to maintain safety and what role, if any, the government has to play in that.”
He also cautioned that “hyper-regulation” from legislative bodies could hold America back from being more competitive.”
“This is a very complex issue that requires a lot of work and bipartisan solutions,” Johnson said, adding that each AI platform provider has different ideas for what guardrails should look like.
“We want to emphasize the necessity of them providing safe products and self-regulating,” Johnson said. “There is also a role potentially for Congress to play, but we have to do this with a balanced approach to ensure that we maintain our edge over China.”
Johnson separately noted he would support legislation on the floor Tuesday aimed at forcing tech companies to bear the brunt of rising energy costs associated with data centers — an issue that has taken on urgency amid voter backlash ahead of the November elections.
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