President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order inviting the country's top artificial intelligence developers to submit their most advanced cyber models for federal review, less than two weeks after he walked away from a nearly identical signing ceremony.

The order gives the federal government up to 30 days to vet the national security risks of frontier AI systems before public release. Participation by developers, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, is voluntary. The directive replaces the version Trump refused to sign on May 21 after canceling an Oval Office event with tech executives.

What the order does

The order establishes a framework led by the director of the National Security Agency to assess advanced models for cybersecurity risk. The 30-day window is shorter than parts of the industry had anticipated, a concession to a sector that has warned longer reviews would slow deployment.

"Advanced AI capabilities make our Nation stronger, but also introduce new national security considerations that require coordinated action across executive departments and agencies," the order says.

The White House said on social media Tuesday that the order "creates a process for frontier labs to voluntarily share cutting-edge cyber models in order to secure critical infrastructure and strengthen the government's own cyber defenses." The post added: "We are NOT conducting oversight of all new models, as that level of government overreach would have chilling effects on free speech and innovation."

Why Trump balked in May

Trump scrapped the May 21 ceremony after objecting to the earlier draft. "We're leading China, we're leading everybody, and I don't want to do anything that's going to get in the way of that lead," he told reporters at the time.

The Mythos backdrop

The push for vetting followed Anthropic's April release of its most advanced model, Claude Mythos, unveiled amid the company's legal fight with the administration over a Pentagon contract dispute. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon convened Wall Street chief executives to warn them about Mythos' apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world's software. Anthropic has limited Mythos to a small group of trusted partners and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new order.

OpenAI welcomed the directive. "As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust," said Chris Lehane, the company's chief global affairs officer.

The discretion problem

Juan Londoño, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, called the order "a step in the right direction" but raised concerns about how the NSA director will decide which models face scrutiny and which "trusted partners" receive early access. Concentrating that authority in one official, he said, sets a "dangerous precedent" that could let the government "weaponize" the policy against companies it is clashing with, like Anthropic. Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, backed the policy but said the administration had "belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year," a reference to Trump's repeal of Biden-era AI guardrails on his first day back in office.

Whether labs locked in court with the White House sign up is the next test.