It's Time for Big Tech to Stop Kissing Trump's Ring

In the AI era, we need leaders who will put the health and safety of our communities first.

Photo Credit: The White House

This month, Anthropic did something unheard of in Silicon Valley of late: it refused to kiss the Trump administration’s ring.

Instead, the company insisted that its technology not be used for mass domestic surveillance, and that AI isn’t advanced enough to autonomously operate weapons of war.

The Trump administration, as feckless as it is irresponsible, responded with the usual threats. Most notably, the loss of Anthropic’s $200 million Pentagon contract. When the company didn’t budge, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the galactically stupid decision to label Anthropic a supply chain risk, barring it from doing business with the U.S. government. (This, at a time when China’s leaders are investing record sums to become the world’s AI superpower. They must be pinching themselves).

It remains to be seen how this standoff will end. But Anthropic should hold its ground.

This is not an administration that can be trusted to deploy what is potentially the most powerful invention in human history. It has bungled even the most basic of national security protocols. (Recall Signalgate). More recently, it instigated a war with Iran without the approval of Congress or any discernible strategic rationale.

As the risks of AI come into clearer focus, we need courageous leaders who are willing to stand up to Trump and the corporate interests who shamelessly curry his favor more than ever. Otherwise the AI era will be another boom for billionaires and tyrants—and a bust for everyone else.

As governor of the state that created AI, I’ll champion innovation. But I won’t let the state be a rubber-stamp for the AI industry or the Trump administration.

Here’s my plan.

First, I’ll protect working people and families.

Globalization displaced millions of workers, with no plan for what comes next. We can’t allow that history to repeat itself in the AI era.

Instead, we need to invest in tools to support workers, because no machine can replace the creativity, compassion, and experience that humans bring to the workplace every day.

I’ll create more of the jobs humans do best, and partner with labor to adopt reasonable guardrails for AI use in the workplace—especially when it comes to privacy, health, safety, and fairness.

I’ll also make sure we have strong protections in place for families and kids.

For the past 20 years, I’ve helped my brother, Jim Steyer, found and build Common Sense Media, the nation’s leading nonprofit that helps parents and children safely navigate the digital world. That work has taught me many things. Among them: The people who stand to profit the most from technology shouldn’t be making the rules about how it is used.

I’ll require that social media platforms conduct safety audits and strictly enforce age requirements. I’ll also require independent safety testing to make sure frontier models are safe—before they go on the market. And because the link between social media use and the youth mental health crisis is clear, I’ll ban social media for kids under 16.

Second, I’ll make sure Californians get a piece of the huge wealth created by AI.

For generations, people have built their fortunes in California. But those fortunes should never come at the expense of working people. Here in the state that made AI possible, we win as a team—or not at all.

To make sure everyone benefits from AI and not just a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires, I’ll ask voters to approve the creation of the Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund, a dedicated investment vehicle funded by a “token tax” on corporate AI use—a fraction of a cent for every unit of data processed by Big Tech.

These dollars will help ensure everyday Californians share in the AI boom, through cash dividends, investments in education, and aggressive job training for workers displaced by automation.

Finally, I’ll make sure California continues to lead the way on AI—and not just in Silicon Valley.

We have a real opportunity to solve age-old problems that AI can uniquely help address. Whether it’s curing diseases, revolutionizing weather forecasting, preventing and detecting wildfires, strengthening public services, or providing personalized educational tools that help teachers and students, AI can transform how we live and work.

But a handful of big companies shouldn’t be the sole architects of that transformation. As governor, I’ll support small businesses and “little tech”—startups and entrepreneurs working at the frontier of AI development.

And because innovation isn’t confined to Silicon Valley, I’ll make sure colleges, universities, startups, and small businesses have the low-cost computing power they need to innovate.

The AI era is one of both excitement and anxiety. Opportunity and risk. Whether in Silicon Valley or Sacramento, we need leaders with a strong moral compass, who will stand up to corporate interests and Trump’s anti-democratic saber rattling.

With no big donors or corporate PAC money, I have no special interests to cater to. There are no rings to kiss.

The only people I will answer to are the people of California.

Learn more about my plan here.