Exclusive / Senators sought to add AI antitrust exemption to defense bill - Semafor
Senators had secured a narrow antitrust exemption for AI companies in annual must-pass defense policy legislation earlier this year before negotiations over the measure were delayed, according to people familiar with the matter.
Senators included the national security-focused antitrust exemption as part of a larger so-called manager’s package of amendments to the bill, which the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee file each year.
Specifically, the package would have included a proposal from Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., granting AI companies a limited antitrust exemption for sharing intelligence with one another and coordinating defenses against Chinese spying and distilling of AI models, and addressing other risks to advanced systems such as cybersecurity incidents.
The package had approval from Armed Services Committee leaders, Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., the people said. Senate Democrats blocked debate on the annual bill over the summer in objection to President Donald Trump’s handling of the Iran war. It would have to survive negotiations with the House.
The effort, which hasn’t been previously reported, takes on new relevance as AI companies, led by Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, advocate for a different type of antitrust exemption that allows them to coordinate on pacing the development of their technologies. That idea, fueled by concerns about risks posed by the fast-advancing technology, has drawn criticism from members of the Trump administration, as well as members of Congress from both parties.
“You have a basic obligation to make your products safe. Do not demand antitrust waivers or liability waivers in exchange for that,” Trump’s former AI adviser, David Sacks, said in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this week.
While Amodei has suggested an antitrust waiver for coordinating on capability slowdown, the proposal from Banks and Schiff is decidedly narrower. It focuses on Chinese espionage and distillation, or the practice of an AI model training on a more sophisticated model to steal techniques.
An earlier announcement of the proposal said it would allow for “coordinating responses to risks involving loss of operational control over advanced AI systems” — which the people said relates to incidents like the Hugging Face attack by OpenAI agents — and letting researchers share information with one another.
Lawmakers enacted a similar policy for companies through the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which protects companies from antitrust liability when they share cyber threats with government agencies or one another.
It’s unclear whether the current debate over AI safety — or potential White House opposition — will change the fate of the provision.
If it passes the Senate, the defense bill will need to be reconciled with the House’s own version before it can reach Trump’s desk.
Not everyone in the AI industry is lobbying for the broader carveout as pushed by Amodei: OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, recently said such an exemption for labs to be able to coordinate on pacing was unnecessary.
John Connell, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, said in July that the bill from Banks and Schiff would “give the AI industry clear rules of the road to share threat intelligence and collaborate on much-needed standards and benchmarks.”
