GoKawiilU.S. President Donald Trump points his finger as he signs an executive order on AI next to U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. Dec. 11, 2025.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order asking artificial intelligence companies to provide models to the federal government to assess their capabilities ahead of a full release.
The order asks companies, on a voluntary basis, to participate in a benchmarking process to assess a model's "advanced cyber capabilities" and determine whether the model should be considered a "covered frontier model." It then asks for access to those models up to 30 days before the companies plan to release them more broadly, and enables the government to help select the "trusted partners" that will receive early access.
"Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models," the order said.
Trump signed the order in private, just weeks after he postponed a signing ceremony with prominent tech CEOs because he "didn't like certain aspects of it," he told reporters at the time.
The order, which is thin on specific details, lands at a pivotal moment for AI development in the U.S. On Monday, Claude developer Anthropic said it confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an IPO, and rival OpenAI is also gearing up for a potential offering this year. Elon Musk's SpaceX, which own AI lab xAI, is poised to beat both of them to the public market, with a debut set to take place as soon as next week that could value the company at well over $1 trillion.
WATCH: Trump signs AI executive order asking companies to give government early access to models