Cybersecurity Policy Report, Trump EO Seeks Voluntary Cooperation From AI Developers on Cyber Threat Assessments, (Jun 2, 2026)

By Tom Leithauser

AI (artificial intelligence) models that could be misused by hackers will undergo pre-deployment testing by an “AI cybersecurity clearinghouse” led by the Treasury Department under an executive order (EO) issued today by President Trump.

The EO on “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security” calls on Treasury and national security agencies to encourage AI developers to voluntarily submit frontier models to the clearinghouse prior to their public release.

“Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the National Cyber Director, the Secretary of War, through the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Secretary of Homeland Security, through the Director of CISA, shall form an AI cybersecurity clearinghouse, in voluntary collaboration with the AI industry and operators of critical infrastructure, that coordinates and deconflicts scanning for software vulnerabilities, discovers and validates such vulnerabilities, and coordinates and prioritizes remediation and distribution of vulnerability patches,” the EO says.

The EO is a revised version of an order that President Trump had been scheduled to sign last month. But the president expressed concern that the provisions of the earlier EO would hamper AI development in the U.S. (CPR, May 21).

The earlier version would have given the government a 90-day window to assess frontier AI models before their wider release, while the version released today provides a 30-day window. Although the assessment regime will be optional for AI developers, the EO represents a change in the administration’s hands-off policy toward AI development.

Some frontier AI models now pose national security threats because they’re capable of quickly finding and exploiting cyber vulnerabilities in technologies used by critical infrastructure. Both Anthropic and OpenAI have withheld recent models from public release, instead offering access to a select group of organizations capable of using the models for cyber defense.

“Advanced AI capabilities make our Nation stronger, but also introduce new national security considerations that require coordinated action across executive departments and agencies (agencies), and components. As these capabilities evolve, 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,” Mr. Trump’s EO says.

“It is the policy of the United States to promote AI innovation and security by working collaboratively with the private sector to modernize government and private sector information systems and harden them against external threats; to protect American ingenuity and intellectual property from exploitation and theft by adversaries; and to cultivate America’s advanced AI-enabled capabilities,” it says.

The EO gives the Treasury Department, in coordination with the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, 60 days to “develop and maintain a classified benchmarking process to assess the advanced cyber capabilities of AI models and determine the threshold at which an AI model should be designated a ‘covered frontier model’ for the purposes of this order, sharing such assessments with AI developers and researchers as appropriate.”

Treasury and its federal partners would also have to “design a voluntary framework” for AI developers to engage with the federal government to (1) determine whether an AI model meets the designation of “covered frontier model”; and (2) “provide the Federal Government with access to covered frontier models, subject to appropriate confidentiality, cybersecurity, insider-risk, and intellectual-property protection, use, and nondisclosure requirements, for a period of up to 30 days before they plan to release such models to other trusted partners.”

The EO specifically rejects “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 United States continues to lead the world in Artificial Intelligence (AI) because of the enormous talent and innovation of our AI industry, and because we refuse to stifle this innovation with overly burdensome regulation,” the EO adds. “We will continue to lead an America First cybersecurity effort that enhances both our national security and our global AI dominance.”

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