Gavin Newsom Orders California to Advance Creation of AI ‘Kill Switch’ — Says Trump and Congress Are ‘Failing to Lead’ on AI Oversight

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has ordered the state to accelerate independent oversight of AI companies and explore an emergency "kill switch" for advanced AI models.

Newsom Orders AI Oversight, Explore ‘Kill Switch’ On Friday, Newsom signed the executive order directing California officials to speed up implementation of two AI laws enacted last week that establish independent verification organizations and a registry for AI auditors.

The order also calls for a group of experts to develop recommendations within two months.

The recommendations will examine whether frontier AI companies should have independent evaluators working onsite and whether their most advanced models should have an emergency shutdown mechanism.

Newsom said the state needs to act because Washington has not established what he considers sufficient federal AI oversight.

"The federal government’s abject failure to create any form of meaningful AI oversight or accountability should alarm every American," Newsom said.

He called California’s framework a potential national baseline and urged President Donald Trump and Congress to adopt it.

On X, he said, "With Donald Trump and Congress failing to lead, California is stepping up to keep all Americans safe."

BREAKING: I just signed an EXECUTIVE ORDER to dramatically accelerate independent oversight of AI companies and advance the creation of an "AI kill switch."

With Donald Trump and Congress failing to lead, California is stepping up to keep all Americans safe.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 18, 2026

AI Regulation Debate Intensifies The move comes as lawmakers and AI executives debate whether development of advanced models should slow down to allow safety measures to catch up.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called this week for a pause in advanced AI development, arguing that decisions about the technology should be made by elected representatives rather than companies.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) have also proposed legislation that would permanently ban the development and deployment of artificial superintelligence and temporarily pause advanced AI development until federal safety rules are established.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has also urged the industry to "pace the frontier," while proposing greater third-party oversight of AI systems. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) have backed calls for a slower development pace.

Trump, meanwhile, has rejected calls to slow AI development, saying the U.S. needs to maintain its lead over China.

"I’m telling you it’s all a hoax. The data centers are great. They make people wealthy. They make states wealthy. AI is bigger than the internet. These people are playing right into the hands of China. We’re not going to let that happen," he told Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang during a call.