Elon Musk has publicly called for AI regulation since at least 2023: he was reported as a signer of a March 2023 open letter urging a six-month pause on training systems more powerful than GPT-4, asked a U.S. Senate forum in September 2023 for a government "referee" over AI, and backed California's SB 1047 in August 2024. During the same period he started his own AI company, xAI, so his stated concerns and his business activity run in parallel.
Key takeaways
- The Future of Life Institute letter was published on March 22, 2023 and called on all labs to pause for at least six months the training of systems more powerful than GPT-4.
- At the Senate AI Insight Forum on September 13, 2023, Musk described a regulator as a referee, according to news reports of his remarks to reporters.
- xAI was announced on July 12, 2023, about four months after the pause letter, and states its goal as understanding the true nature of the universe.
- California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed SB 1047 on September 29, 2024; a narrower transparency law, SB 53, was signed on September 29, 2025.
- Statements of concern are documented; claims about what his companies will achieve are forecasts and are not treated here as facts.
The March 2023 pause letter
The Future of Life Institute published Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter on March 22, 2023. It called on all AI labs to pause for at least six months the training of systems more powerful than GPT-4, and said governments should step in with a moratorium if labs did not do so quickly. It also called for new regulatory authorities and oversight of highly capable systems. The institute's page shows 31,810 signatures at the time of checking. Musk's signature was widely reported at the time, including by Time on March 29, 2023, though the page's visible text does not list individual names.
The letter did not produce a pause. Training of larger systems continued, and the letter itself is a statement of concern, not a legal instrument.
The Senate forum and the referee remark
On September 13, 2023, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hosted a closed-door AI Insight Forum that drew executives including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, and Musk. Schumer said more than 60 senators attended. Speaking to reporters afterward, Musk said it is important to have a referee for AI, meaning a regulator that makes sure companies act safely and in the interest of the public. Reports also say he and Schmidt raised existential risks at the forum, though the detail of those remarks was not made public in the sources reviewed.
A forum is not a hearing, and no legislation followed from it directly. Two senators criticized the closed format.
Starting xAI while calling for caution
Musk announced xAI on July 12, 2023. Its stated goal was to understand the true nature of the universe, and its early team was reported to include people who had worked at DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, and Tesla. The timing is simply a matter of dates: the pause letter came in March, and the company came in July. Whether the two are consistent depends on the reader's view of whether a pause was meant to apply to all labs equally. The letter's text addressed all labs, and no source reviewed records Musk explaining the sequence in detail.
SB 1047 and what followed
On August 26, 2024, Musk wrote on X that California should probably pass the SB 1047 AI safety bill, calling it a tough call, as reported by several outlets. The bill would have required developers of large AI models, and those providing the computing power to train them, to adopt safeguards against catastrophic harm, and would have created a state Board of Frontier Models. Governor Newsom returned it without his signature on September 29, 2024, noting that California is home to 32 of the world's 50 leading AI companies and that he took seriously the responsibility to regulate the industry. A year later, on September 29, 2025, he signed SB 53, the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act, which requires large developers to publish a framework describing how they incorporate standards and best practices.
Timeline of the public record
| Date | Event | Type | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 22, 2023 | Pause letter published | Open letter | No pause adopted |
| July 12, 2023 | xAI announced | Company launch | Company founded |
| September 13, 2023 | Senate AI Insight Forum | Closed-door meeting | No direct legislation |
| August 26, 2024 | Public support for SB 1047 | Post on X | Bill vetoed September 29, 2024 |
| September 29, 2025 | SB 53 signed | State law | Transparency duties for large developers |
How to read statements by a company owner
- Separate what was said, what was signed, and what was built.
- Check whether a quote comes from a transcript, a social media post, or a news summary.
- Treat predictions about timelines and capabilities as forecasts, not findings.
- Look at what happened to each proposal, since a stated preference does not enact a law.
FAQ
Did Elon Musk sign the AI pause letter?
Major outlets reported that he did, including Time on March 29, 2023. The letter page shows more than 31,000 signatures, and its visible text does not list names, so the report is the evidence cited here.
Does Musk support AI regulation?
On the record he has asked for a regulator and supported one California bill. Positions on other proposals are not covered here, and support for regulation in general differs from support for any specific bill.
Did the pause ever take effect?
No. The letter requested a voluntary pause, and no binding pause was adopted.
Is SB 1047 in force?
No. It was vetoed on September 29, 2024. A different law, SB 53, was signed in 2025.
Related reading
- Grok, the chatbot from xAI
- Researchers who shape AI
- Human-centered AI
- Research ideas in neural networks
More in AI Policy and Ethics.
Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter, Future of Life Institute, March 22, 2023
- SB 1047 veto message, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, California, September 29, 2024
- Tech titans meet US lawmakers, Musk seeks referee for AI, September 13, 2023, as carried by Global News
- Governor Newsom signs SB 53, Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, September 29, 2025
- Reports on Musk's support for SB 1047, Washington Times, August 27, 2024