DOMINANT ANGLE
Berlin sees Trump's refusal as a geopolitical gamble: the race with China takes precedence over the calls for caution issued by America's own AI champions.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
Trump calls AI alerts a "Schwindel" (hoax) and a "kranke Verschwörung" (sick conspiracy) targeting data centers, in a message posted Monday on Truth Social.
- 02
Trump sums up his priority with the phrase "Wer bei KI gewinnt, gewinnt" (who wins AI wins), putting the lead over China above calls to slow down from Amodei, Musk, and Altman.
- 03
The Pentagon excluded Anthropic from certain military contracts after it refused to adapt its models to domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons, a dispute that Trump personalizes by accusing Dario Amodei of "hypocrisy".
ANALYSIS
Berlin, September 15, 2026. Donald Trump brushed off warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence on Monday on Truth Social, calling them "Schwindel" - a scam - and a "sick conspiracy" targeting American data centers. The president, who describes himself as a "canular hunter", rejects the idea that AI can "conquer, engulf and destroy the world" or that robots "invade our cities". He compares these fears to the Russian affair that weighed on his first term - the investigation by special prosecutor Robert Mueller into possible links between his campaign team and Moscow in 2016 - and to climate change alerts, which he considers just as "abwegig", abusive.
This outburst responds to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, calling for a slowdown in AI development to allow time for security safeguards to catch up, a position supported by Elon Musk and Sam Altman, which had caused AI-related tech stocks to plummet on the stock market. For Trump, the priority remains elsewhere: "Wer bei KI gewinnt, gewinnt" - whoever wins AI wins, he emphasizes, presenting the American lead over China as the only variable that matters. He attributes the warnings to unnamed "negative forces", while admitting that rules remain possible: "Wir können Leitplanken setzen, wir können dies und das tun."
The core of the argument lies in one sentence: the only "safeguard" AI needs is "a strong and intelligent president (high IQ!)". The Handelsblatt links this offensive to a more concrete dispute: the Pentagon excluded Anthropic from certain military contracts after it refused to provide its models for domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons - a disagreement that Trump personalizes by accusing Amodei of "hypocrisy".
The German press also notes the Chinese reaction, which denounces the spread of threat narratives by American AI giants and sees it as a means of fueling confrontation. Microsoft, for its part, has published a code of conduct on AI, a sign that the industry is seeking to regulate itself without waiting for regulation from Washington.
