David Sacks Just Called Big AI’s Bluff: You Don’t Need Washington’s Permission to Slow Down

Why exactly do the leading artificial-intelligence companies need the government’s permission to slow down? 

That was the question David Sacks posed over the weekend, and it gets to the heart of the entire AI-regulation push. In a lengthy post on X, the chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology blasted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for acting as though they need Washington’s blessing to “pace the frontier” of AI development. 

Sacks’ point was simple: Amodei and Altman are the frontier. Anthropic and OpenAI hold a duopoly at the leading edge of AI. If their unreleased models are truly dangerous enough to justify slowing down, they can simply slow down. No federal permission is required.

Dario has written that we need to “pace the frontier,” and Sam has agreed. People may be surprised by my response: go ahead.

You guys are the frontier. By any reasonable metric — market share, revenue growth, model capability — the two of you have a duopoly on frontier…

— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) September 13, 2026

"Dario has written that we need to “pace the frontier,” and Sam has agreed. People may be surprised by my response: go ahead," Sacks wrote.

You guys are the frontier. By any reasonable metric — market share, revenue growth, model capability — the two of you have a duopoly on frontier intelligence. You’ve also claimed the lead is widening because of recursive self-improvement. I don’t see what you see in the lab. If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible. But stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission. Stop pretending antitrust law has to be suspended so you can form a cartel. Stop pretending you need a regulatory approval process that supersedes product liability. Stop pretending METR is independent when it is intertwined with Anthropic’s investors and staff. Stop pretending you need those same evaluators to police competitors who aren’t even at the frontier. 

Most of all, stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic. You face massive product-liability exposure if your products enable a truly damaging cyberattack. The market already punishes models that behave in unpredictable or unauthorized ways. After the Hugging Face episode, it is simply good business for OpenAI and Anthropic to trade some raw power for reliability and predictability. Call it alignment if you want. It is also just giving customers what they want. Pacing the frontier would also create breathing room for a more intelligent conversation about regulation than Bernie Sanders’ “shut it all down.” China is very unlikely to join a global agreement, as you know, and that has to be taken into account as well. 

"So go ahead and pace the frontier. You are the ones setting it. The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it," Sacks argued. "Demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system. So just do it. If you do, you’ll buy goodwill for the next conversation. If you don’t, we’ll know this was just another bid for regulatory capture — or an election-season psyop."

As of now, this looks less like a principled push for safety than a textbook case of regulatory capture. 

Artificial intelligence is among the most competitive sectors in America today. Companies are racing to build better models, hire talent, develop chips, construct data centers and bring new products to market. Jobs, capital and profit are all flowing freely into the industry. That competition is exactly what keeps companies from becoming too comfortable, or too powerful. 

But if there is one lesson I've learned from American politics, it is that a genuinely free market rarely remains free for long.

Editor's Note: Do you enjoy Townhall's conservative reporting that takes on the radical Left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.