Musk to be Trump's AI advisor?

The not-for-profit AI advocacy group, Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI), has launched a public petition calling for recently re-elected US president, Donald Trump, to make Elon Musk his special AI advisor. 

The petition, which aims to gather over 10,000 signatures in one month, states that “Musk knows what it’s going to take to make America lead on safe AI,” and “there’s no one better positioned to help the Trump Administration navigate this.” 

It highlights Musk’s experience in the AI industry—he co-founded OpenAI and runs his own AI startup, xAI—and his deep-rooted commitment to AI safety—he tried to sue OpenAI for abandoning its original mission to develop safe AI (in favor of profit), publicly supported the controversial (now vetoed) SB 1047 AI Safety Bill, attempted to buy DeepMind to stop the then CEO, Larry Page, from developing unsafe AI, and vocalized that certain AI should be temporarily prohibited.

Although critics think that putting Musk in such a position of power would be a conflict of interest—after all, he does have his own AI startup—the ARI argues that “with proper guardrails in place, his unique combination of technical expertise and safety advocacy could be a valuable asset in developing responsible AI governance.”

Although Musk has declared, under the new Trump administration, that he wants to head up a new government department—the Department of Government Efficiency—which will be tasked with reorganizing the US regulatory system, the ARI thinks he could still influence the development of safe AI from within this position, as he could protect AI safety groups and agencies from things like budget and resource cuts.