Here's a thought: what if the biggest threat to American AI dominance isn't China's technology or Europe's strict regulations, but our own fifty states each writing their own rulebook? That's the warning from venture capitalist David Sacks, who now chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Not an Amnesty, a Jurisdictional Fight

On Monday, Sacks took to X to defend President Donald Trump's "one rulebook" approach to AI regulation. This isn't about giving tech companies a free pass, he insisted. It's about figuring out who actually gets to make the rules.

His argument is straightforward: when AI models are developed, trained, and deployed across state lines, that's interstate commerce. And interstate commerce, according to the Constitution, falls squarely under federal jurisdiction. The Founders designed it that way for exactly this reason.

The problem? Without federal preemption, we've already got a mess. Sacks points to over 1,200 state-level AI bills floating around, with more than 100 already enacted. States like Colorado, California, and Illinois have created liability frameworks for AI developers whose models contribute to "algorithmic discrimination," defined as having a "disparate impact" on protected groups.

Sacks took a jab at how this kind of ideological intervention plays out in practice. "This type of ideological meddling is how we ended up with 'black George Washington,'" he said, referencing the controversy around Google's Gemini, which was accused last year of generating historically inaccurate images. His take? "AI models should strive for the truth and be ideologically unbiased."

The Nightmare Scenario

If every state writes its own rules, Sacks warns, we could end up with 50 different AI models for 50 different states. That's not just inefficient, it's potentially catastrophic for competitiveness. Smaller startups would get crushed under compliance costs, innovation would slow to a crawl, and the regulatory environment could become "worse than Europe." Meanwhile, China keeps racing ahead.

Sacks acknowledged concerns around what he calls "the 4 C's": child safety, communities, creators, and censorship. Those protections would remain under a federal framework, he said. But he added a fifth C that should guide policy: competitiveness.

Executive Action Coming Soon

Trump himself weighed in Monday on Truth Social, arguing that "AI will be destroyed in its infancy" if all 50 states adopt their own regulatory frameworks. He didn't mince words, calling many of those states "bad actors."

According to a draft order obtained last month, the administration plans to create an AI Litigation Task Force inside the Justice Department. Its mission? Challenge state AI laws that federal officials believe are holding back the industry.

Not everyone's on board. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) fired back at the plan, saying, "Trump wants to deregulate AI and let the richest people on earth do whatever they want. Unacceptable."

The executive order is expected to drop this week, setting up what could be a major constitutional showdown between federal and state authority over one of the most consequential technologies of our time.