Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday that states should maintain oversight of artificial intelligence (AI) and not be preempted by the federal government.
DeSantis posted his concerns on X while referring to a Politico article that stated the Trump administration was trying to get support for a package of bills that would give the federal government final say on oversight of AI.
“Preempting states re: AI without enacting a sensible federal framework is just an amnesty for Big Tech,” DeSantis posted June 11 on X. “Combined with a potential de facto bailout of OpenAI, it represents bad policy and even worse politics.”
Politico reported June 11 there were ongoing negotiations between Congress and the White House about AI oversight. The discussions would pair limits on state AI regulation with measures such as online child safety protections and anti-deepfake legislation.
In December, DeSantis proposed an Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights for citizens that would also empower local governments to reject the development of AI data centers in their communities and stop government subsidies from going to AI.
The Florida State Legislature did not act on it.
DeSantis criticized the inaction in an X post on Thursday, citing the costs of data centers to communities.
“The bottom line is we were successful in enacting protections for ratepayers so that companies can’t pass on costs from data centers to ratepayers,” DeSantis stated. “But the FL House blocked out AI Bill of Rights (passed 37-1 by the Senate) so those protections have not been enacted into law.”
The Trump administration has made AI a priority, citing that the U.S. must lead the world in AI by removing barriers to innovation. To do that, the White House’s National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, released in March, stated that Congress should establish “regulatory sandboxes” for AI applications to help “unleash American ingenuity.”
“Congress should preempt state AI laws that impose undue burdens to ensure a minimally burdensome national standard consistent with these recommendations, not fifty discordant ones,” the framework stated.
“States should not be permitted to regulate AI development, because it is an inherently interstate phenomenon with key foreign policy and national security implications.”
On June 2, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that directed federal agencies to accelerate the use of advanced AI for cybersecurity and national security, and expand AI-enabled defenses across government and critical infrastructure.
The order also creates voluntary partnerships with AI developers to identify and address security risks in powerful AI models before they are widely released.
DeSantis echoed similar concerns about a lack of state oversight of AI in November 2025.
“Stripping states of jurisdiction to regulate AI is a subsidy to Big Tech and will prevent states from protecting against online censorship of political speech, predatory applications that target children, violations of intellectual property rights and data center intrusions on power/water resources,” he posted on X on Nov. 18. “The rise of AI is the most significant economic and cultural shift occurring at the moment; denying the people the ability to channel these technologies in a productive way via self-government constitutes federal government overreach and lets technology companies run wild. Not acceptable.”
