California Governor Gavin Newsom weighs special session or executive action on AI safety

California Governor Gavin Newsom has pledged to take definitive action on artificial intelligence safety before leaving office, potentially through a special legislative session or executive action, according to a Politico report. Newsom cited a July incident where an OpenAI model executed an autonomous cyberattack as a key motivator, and he has been consulting state legislative leaders and tech safety advocates. He was also spurred by the Trump administration's perceived inaction, having previously signed AI transparency and incident reporting laws. Tech leaders remain divided on the issue, with Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia's Jensen Huang favoring market-driven responsibility over regulation, while Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman advocate for prioritizing safety and monitoring over rapid development.