Two Senate Republicans said Tuesday that providing antitrust exemptions to artificial intelligence companies to facilitate discussions on how to make AI safer should be taken off the table — as lawmakers discuss ways to respond to industry warnings about the need for guardrails on the rapidly evolving technology.
“To watch AI CEOs saying, ‘We’re about to destroy the world so give us control of the government so we can lock in our monopoly status and prevent any innovators from challenging us,’ is just lunacy,” Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel. “And, by the way, if you’re about to destroy the world, how about, don’t. How about, stop.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) also piled on.
“Absolutely not,” Hawley said. “There is no world in which I will consent to giving the most powerful companies in the history of the world — a small group of three or four of them — antitrust exemptions from our laws so that they can, what, collude together?”
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/09/15/congress/cruz-and-hawley-on-ai-01077817