The discourse over AI regulation is heating up and spilling out on social media.
White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks and billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman exchanged barbs after Hoffman expressed his support for Anthropic’s approach to AI innovation and safety in a thread posted to X on Monday.
“The leading funder of lawfare and dirty tricks against President Trump wants you to know that ‘Anthropic is one of the good guys.’ Thanks for clarifying that. All we needed to know,” Sacks posted on social media platform X.
Hoffman, who is also a major Democratic donor and AI optimist, responded minutes later. He accused Sacks of not actually reading the thread in which he advocates for “a light-touch regulatory landscape that prioritizes innovation and enables new players to compete on level playing fields.” He also referenced Microsoft, Google and OpenAI as “trying to deploy AI the right way.”
“When you are ready to have a professional conversation about AI’s impact on America, I’m here to chat,” Hoffman wrote. “Also: crying ‘lawfare and dirty tricks’ is particularly rich, given the Trump Administration’s recent actions.”
In a wide-ranging conversation prior to the social media spat (and on the heels of an event called Entrepreneurs First Demo Day in San Francisco), Hoffman spoke to Inc. about his approach to AI regulation, describing it as “iterative deployment and development,” rather than preemptive, fear-based rulemaking. He compared it to how motor vehicles preceded the introduction and mandate of seatbelts.
“Let’s limit the regulatory stuff to transparency, monitoring, accountability, to get a good sense of what’s actually going on, and then only impose when we know that there’s something potentially catastrophic,” he says.
Some critics worry, however, that lawmakers are not informed enough to craft meaningful regulations for technology that is changing as rapidly as AI, whereas others blame regulatory inaction on lobbying and campaign contributions. Hoffman says that he believes frontier AI labs can help govern themselves.
“When I was on the board of OpenAI, part of what we were doing was trying to make sure all the top labs were talking to each other about how to do safety the right way, but it grew more and more tense with regulators,” he says.
“It’d be useful to have some kinds of cross-collaboration on what is good alignment, what is good safety,” he adds.
Hoffman’s uneasy relationship with the Trump administration precedes the October X feud. In late September, Trump mentioned Hoffman as a possible target of a probe along with George Soros, after a Reuters reporter asked him who he might investigate in connection with domestic terrorism, Reuters reported. Trump was signing a memorandum meant to crack down on domestic terrorism and political violence several days after he signed an executive order designating anti-fascism or “Antifa” a domestic terrorism organization. Both Soros and Hoffman are substantial donors to the Democratic Party, and Hoffman also helped to fund E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against the president through a nonprofit, CNBC reported.
Hoffman tells Inc. that these developments have not changed his politics, although he has been “careful about trying to fund stuff very directly.”
Hoffman describes himself as “very pro-American society, very pro-American prosperity and business.”
“As far as I’m aware,” he says, “Antifa is a fictional organization and I certainly would never have deliberately funded anything that would support domestic terrorism.”
Hoffman also says he has not backed pro-AI super PACs, two of which emerged in one week in September to support AI-friendly politicians regardless of political affiliation, The New York Times reported. Tech titans have also been spotted hobnobbing with the president, including at a September dinner at the White House. Executives including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and Microsoft’s Bill Gates reportedly discussed various AI-related investments and educational initiatives, while also praising the president. Hoffman says the fawning “could be a little silly,” but says he believes business leaders do have a role to play in U.S. politics.
“Especially in democracies, it’s very important for all business leaders to be in collaboration [and] discussion with the elected leaders,” Hoffman says. “Technology sets the drumbeat about what happens with society, what happens with industries and so forth, and so I think that dialog is extremely important.”
Hoffman has himself co-founded two AI-powered startups in recent years. He co-founded Inflection AI together with Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan in 2022, to create a more empathetic large language model. The company pivoted in 2024 after Microsoft paid a fee to license its technology and hired away much of its top talent. And earlier this year, he launched a new venture, Manas AI, to leverage AI to cut down on the time and costs inherent to therapeutic drug discovery.
Chloe Aiello
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