Trump's Artificial Intelligence order, Take Two. Why it fails to address the potential harms of AI, and how it might possibly affect the legal technology industry.

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Trump signed an executive order Tuesday asking AI companies to give the administration access to powerful models 30 days before public release. The early access is voluntary.

It's a slimmed-down version of the one Trump shelved on May 21st. That version asked companies to let the government review models for a longer period, up to 90 days. 

National-security and cybersecurity officials have pushed for some AI restrictions to address the technology’s potential harms. But it comes up empty.

There might also be implications for the legal technology industry.

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BY:

The Technology Team

Project Counsel Media and Luminative Media

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3 June 2026 (Washington, DC) - After weeks of off-and-on discussions, yesterday Donald Trump suddenly signed an executive order designed to allay concerns over the cybersecurity threats posed by AI models. 

But he did so in private, quite the contrast to the public ceremony - to be attended by tech CEOs - planned for last month before its last-minute cancellation.

The hush-hush ending to the saga over the executive order reflects a fraught process that saw factions within the White House arguing over a new approach to regulation.

The final order does not depart meaningfully from the draft order whose details were widely leaked over the past month, including in our report in May. The language makes it clear that compliance with the order is voluntary. It even specifies that nothing in the order “shall be construed to authorize the creation of a government licensing” system—just in case anyone thought that’s what was going on. 

Still, the biggest fear for tech companies (along with former AI and crypto czar David Sacks, who convinced Trump to bail on the earlier version) concerned language that would ask AI developers to provide the government with access to frontier models “up to 90 days” before releasing them.

The new version changes this language to 30 days. 

Otherwise, the order is dedicated to bulking up the government’s cyberdefense systems, including forming an “AI cybersecurity” clearinghouse between government agencies and AI companies to scan for software vulnerabilities.

For now, all eyes will be on a new ticking clock: The administration has given itself 60 days to develop a framework for identifying which frontier models will be (albeit voluntarily) subject to the order, as well as figuring out which “trusted partners” aside from the government will have earlier access to models. 

The final accord was the result of a White House meeting on Monday between Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, among others, who were pushing to get the order across the finish line and dialed in Sacks to reach a final agreement, according to people familiar with the matter. As ever-evolving AI models pose new threats at a speed faster than government, however, this uneasy White House coalition will have a bumpy road ahead.

We'll have some further thoughts, but first a few notes for our legal technology readers.

While the order doesn't directly affect legal technology, several provisions might indirectly affect vendors that offer AI technology to legal professionals. The order notes:

"Advanced AI capabilities introduce new national security considerations that require coordinated action among across executive departments, agencies and components. My administration will continue to work closely with industry to ensure that the best and most secure technology is deployed rapidly to confront any and all threats to our country".

A report had surfaced last month about a potential executive order that would impose government oversight on new AI models. At the time, the proposals in the potential order focused more on general-purpose language models instead of legal providers.

But Tuesday's executive order includes several cybersecurity mandates. Those include having the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issue binding guidance to expand AI-enabled defensive tools across government and crucial infrastructure. While the legal industry is not specifically mentioned, the order raises expectations for vendor cybersecurity and risk management standards.

The order calls for a Treasury-led AI cybersecurity clearinghouse to find software vulnerabilities and deliver patches to fix them. Wider implications of this oversight include faster disclosure of AI software vulnerabilities "in all industries".

Secure model deployment is another key part of the executive order. It sets up a classified benchmarking process for frontier models, the advanced general-purpose systems developed by companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Most legal AI tools use those frontier models.

Legal pundits have noted the order instructs the attorney general's office to enforce the law against AI-enabled cyberattacks, "which could increase the demand for AI platforms used in criminal and civil investigations". This points indirectly at legal technology platforms using AI. While the order also explicitly says that there will be no "mandatory licensing or permitting" for developing AI models, legal pundits note the "increase the demand for AI platforms used in criminal and civil investigations" puts legal technology on the table.

The order aims to increase the federal government’s oversight of the technology, asking national-security and cyber officials to work with agency heads and top tech companies to address software vulnerabilities - specifically identifying Anthropic’s Mythos.  

But the executive order is a slimmed-down version of the one Trump shelved on May 21st, due to the tsunami of calls from Big Tech execs saying it went too far. That version included the cybersecurity component but would have asked companies to let the government review models for a longer period, up to 90 days.

Trump said at the time that he didn’t want to impede AI’s economic benefits or set the nation back in the tech race with China. It followed a last-minute intervention by venture capitalist and AI adviser David Sacks, who argued that the voluntary model testing could lead to mandatory regulation in the future.

So they shortened the window for model review. And Secretary of the Treasury Bessent was intimately involved because he has helped lead the administration’s response to Mythos, warning that new AI models could wreak havoc on the financial system. He has urged banks to integrate the models into their cybersecurity work.

The executive order is the administration’s latest shift on AI policy, highlighting how Trump is struggling to balance competing factions within the White House: one side seeking more oversight of models, and the other seeking to tear down all barriers to AI deployment. The technology’s implications for the economy and national security also challenged the Biden administration and have divided Congress, which hasn’t passed AI legislation.

National-security and cybersecurity officials, including National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, have pushed for some AI restrictions to address the technology’s potential harms, which have spurred growing backlash around the country.

The order “keeps America leading in AI while putting these frontier capabilities to work strengthening our cyber defenses,” said Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which helped lead work on the order. 

Sacks said the order “is a game changer because it allows our AI labs to comply with the voluntary framework without delaying new model releases.”

Many AI companies have said they support the approach the White House has taken and had sent executives to Washington for a signing ceremony two weeks ago when Trump pulled the plug. Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith said Tuesday that the company welcomed the effort. 

But critics say the order falls well short of the mandatory regulations needed to truly police dangerous AI systems and gives the administration flexibility not to enforce the provisions in a strict way. It mirrors the Trump administration’s broader pattern of creating a wild west environment for AI development.

Yes, the administration had come under pressure to regulate AI following the release of powerful models like Mythos and worries about bad actors using AI to create, for instance, biological weapons (well proven, by the way).

But $$$ talks and fears of China's advances in AI meant the administration backed down.

Also . . . SURPRISE!! . . . Anthropic announced yesterday that the administration "is letting us expand access to Mythos". The White House had previously opposed such a move because of security concerns.

Anthropic said it is expanding Mythos access to roughly 150 companies and organizations around the world, up from about 50 that got initial access in April, so that they can use the model to identify software bugs and patch vulnerabilities.

Those with access now include organizations in more than 15 countries and a range of industries that didn’t previously have access such as healthcare, power and water, the company said. The initial group included tech giants like Amazon.com, Microsoft, Apple and Alphabet-owned Google.

As we noted in previous posts, Mythos had actually slipped its shackles and was already loose in the wild.

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