Trump's AI endorsement sparks rare backlash from his base on Truth Social

President Donald Trump’s Truth Social posting spree attempting to quash fears over the rise of artificial intelligence was met with a rare show of revolt from his base.

Amid growing concerns about the technology’s potential being allowed to develop unchecked, Trump insisted on his platform: “AI, and Data Centers, will be the Greatest Economic Development Engine in History ­­– Bigger than Oil, Gold, Diamonds, or even the Internet.”

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” he declared in another post.

The president also warned against killing off “the Golden Goose” and alleged that only a “SICK conspiracy” of “Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers” would attempt to hold back progress, calling the scare a “hoax.”

As noted by a New York Times analysis, the response the president attracted on his own platform, which usually serves as a comforting MAGA echo chamber, was hostile.

“AI is just NOT the way we need to go sir,” one person replied to Trump. “It’s hurting people more than I can actually say.”

“I voted for you three times, but am very disappointed that you feel the need to shove AI and data centers down our throats,” said another.

Others called AI “EVIL,” said they would never trust it and insisted it “must have safeguards” while one person even told Trump: “Build them data centers at Mar a Lago and you would see it’s just noise pollution and a horrible idea.”

Responding to the rare show of dissent, political science professor Raymond La Raja of the University of Massachusetts Amherst told the newspaper: “It really doesn’t play well to his base because a lot of those folks are probably worried about AI taking their jobs.

“If things start to unravel with AI and we start seeing major social disruptions, you’re going to see him do a quick reversal.”

The Times also suggested that another reason for the hostility is that data centers – needed to meet the processing demands of an increasingly digital economy – are cropping up across the U.S. in rural areas, which are more likely to be home to Republican voters than Democrats.

A New York Times/Siena University survey published Tuesday found Republicans sharply divided on data centers, with 49 percent in favor of their construction and 47 percent opposed, compared with three quarters of Democrats and 60 percent of independents registering their disapproval.

Another poll, published by Politico Wednesday, found that 17 percent of Trump voters said that AI was “almost certain” to destroy humanity one day, another 17 percent said there was as “serious risk” of that scenario and another 20 percent a “moderate risk,” findings not dramatically different to the feelings expressed by Democrats.

A further 20 percent of Trump-aligned respondents said there was a “very small risk” of extinction at the hands of AI and only 9 percent said there was no risk at all.

The current alarm over AI began last week when Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon took to X to announce his resignation from the company and warned that those leading the sector were “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” without taking sufficient precautions.

Big Tech bosses Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei have since agreed that greater regulation, laboratory inspections and international cooperation is required to ensure control is maintained.