Why Trump’s order targeting ‘woke’ AI may be impossible to follow
President Trump signed an executive order requiring companies with US government contracts to make their AI models “free from ideological bias”. That could get messy for Big Tech
By Jeremy Hsu
24 July 2025
US President Donald Trump displays a signed executive order at an AI summit on 23 July 2025 in Washington, DC
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Donald Trump wants to ensure the US government only gives federal contracts to artificial intelligence developers whose systems are “free from ideological bias”. But the new requirements could allow his administration to impose its own worldview on tech companies’ AI models – and companies may face significant challenges and risks in trying to modify their models to comply.
“The suggestion that government contracts should be structured to ensure AI systems are ‘objective’ and ‘free from top-down ideological bias’ prompts the question: objective according to whom?” says Becca Branum at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a public policy non-profit in Washington DC.
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The Trump White House’s AI Action Plan, released on 23 July, recommends updating federal guidelines “to ensure that the government only contracts with frontier large language model (LLM) developers who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias”. Trump signed a related executive order titled “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government” on the same day.
The AI action plan also recommends the US National Institute of Standards and Technology revise its AI risk management framework to “eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change”. The Trump administration has already defunded research studying misinformation and shut down DEI initiatives, along with dismissing researchers working on the US National Climate Assessment report and cutting clean energy spending in a bill backed by the Republican-dominated Congress.
“AI systems cannot be considered ‘free from top-down bias’ if the government itself is imposing its worldview on developers and users of these systems,” says Branum. “These impossibly vague standards are ripe for abuse.”
