Trump: DOJ told an AI boss to 'get ready to go to jail'

President Donald Trump told CBS's 60 Minutes that his Justice Department warned the leader of “one of the big” AI companies to “get ready to go to jail,” after the person was reported for “doing something bad with AI.” He would not name the person or the company, gave no date, and said nothing about what the person was supposed to have done; the Justice Department has not commented.

In the same interview, aired Sunday, Trump said “I don't mind guardrails” on AI and would “absolutely” work with Democrats on safety law — a reversal from September, when he called AI safety fears a “HOAX” and said the only guardrails AI needs is a strong president. The condition: no rules that put the U.S. in “a deep second position” behind China, which he said has no guardrails.

The jail story is Trump's alone and cannot be checked: he said the warning worked, the person “totally changed everything,” and replied “Yes, sir.” It echoes what he told TIME in October, when he called the Justice Department and the FBI his “guardrail” for the AI labs and said he had “used it twice.”