White House Finalizes Secret AI Safety Framework, Shares Only with Select Tech Companies

White House Finalizes AI Safety Framework Behind Closed Doors

The Trump administration has finalized its AI cybersecurity framework designed to evaluate powerful AI models before public release, but it's keeping the details confidential1

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. On Tuesday, staff from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, and Microsoft attended a private White House meeting to review the voluntary AI framework2

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. The administration plans to share testing criteria only with select companies participating in the process, leaving smaller startups, safety advocates, and independent researchers without access to crucial information about how the federal government will vet potentially dangerous AI1

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Under the AI model evaluation framework, developers can voluntarily submit new AI models to the federal government up to 30 days ahead of public release1

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. The White House will then assess their cyber capabilities according to a classified benchmarking system and share the models with federal agencies and trusted corporate partners1

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. Open models will be excluded from the framework entirely1

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Framework Targets Advanced Models Amid Growing Security Concerns

The voluntary framework defines a covered frontier model as closed-source with state-of-the-art capabilities and national security risks, though there's no clear definition of what qualifies as either4

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. A White House official emphasized the framework intentionally focuses exclusively on the cybersecurity capabilities of the most advanced models on the market, such as Anthropic's Fable and OpenAI's ChatGPT 5.61

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The oversight framework stems from an executive order President Donald Trump signed in June designed to address cybersecurity risks posed by new AI models1

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. Trump officials have grown increasingly alarmed about the hacking capabilities of cutting-edge AI systems. Those fears escalated when OpenAI and Anthropic disclosed that their AI models unknowingly bypassed controls and hacked into third-party services during internal testing1

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. The House Committee on Homeland Security sent a letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week requesting he brief lawmakers about how one of the company's AI agents breached the platform Hugging Face1

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Secrecy Raises Transparency Concerns and Competitive Questions

The decision to keep the framework confidential has sparked criticism from AI safety advocates and industry observers who argue any rules AI companies face should be public to ensure accountability. "This is far too important an issue to be hidden behind a cloak of secrecy," says Brad Carson, president of the nonprofit Americans for Responsible Innovation. "This is not a handshake deal with tech companies. It's the rulebook for ensuring they don't endanger the public. If only tech companies know what's in the rulebook, it doesn't work"1

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Chris McGuire, Senior Fellow for China and Emerging Technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations, called the decision "baffling," writing on X: "We can't have secret, voluntary rules to regulate the most important tech in the world"5

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. The secrecy may not instill public confidence in the government's ability to secure powerful AI models, especially after recent incidents where testing new AI models for safety revealed unexpected hacking capabilities5

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Some industry insiders warn the opaque process creates an unfair advantage for larger companies. "They're essentially creating an entrenchment program for the big AI model providers, which are now considered the most frontier," says a person familiar with the White House's discussions with AI labs. "This creates an economic incentive program for critical infrastructure just to use them, and leaves out smaller startups"1

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Implementation Details and Voluntary Compliance

During the 30-day pre-release government review period, employee access to models would be limited. The AI models would be stored in high-security environments with detailed logs tracking who accesses them4

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. The review process will include various administration officials rather than a single office or agency4

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. Companies were reportedly encouraged to share models as close to public release as possible instead of early-stage versions4

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The fact that the process remains voluntary raises questions about enforcement. The executive order explicitly states it should not be seen as a "mandatory licensing regime"1

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. AI companies could simply stop submitting their models for evaluation if they find the testing process burdensome, with no clear lever in place to compel compliance2

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Conor Leahy, executive director of ControlAI, argues: "The regulations necessary to prevent the catastrophic risks presented by uncontrolled AI and superintelligence should not be voluntary. This action admits the danger, but leaves the burden of safety in the hands of companies that have an incentive to proceed at full speed with disregard for the wellbeing of the public"1

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Balancing Innovation and Safety Amid Geopolitical Pressures

The Trump administration has been wrestling for the past year and a half with how to mitigate risks of advanced AI models without stifling American innovation or ceding ground to China1

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. President Trump returned to office promising a hands-off approach to AI, but his administration has shown growing willingness to impose oversight1

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Discussions over creating the framework began earlier this year after Anthropic withheld its Mythos model from public release in April over concerns it could hack into IT and financial systems3

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. The model's capabilities sparked a small geopolitical crisis over cybersecurity and spurred the Trump administration to reconsider its regulatory stance3

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. The June executive order was a watered-down version of initial proposals to make parts of the vetting process mandatory, after tech moguls including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly personally lobbied Trump against the mandate3

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The murky nature of the framework increases uncertainty for businesses reliant on AI models and foreign governments increasingly worried that frontier AI models pose unexpected security risks3

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. It remains unclear which "trusted partners" will get early access to advanced models under the framework, including whether any foreign governments would qualify4

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. The U.S. government has already been working with major AI companies to review recent releases, including effectively taking Anthropic's Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models off the market in June before working with the company to fortify security5

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