Executive Order 14365, "Ensuring a National Policy Framework for AI," is a Trump administration executive order signed December 11, 2025. It directs the federal government to preempt state AI laws through litigation, funding conditions, and agency rulemaking, and to prepare a uniform federal AI framework. It is the successor substantive framework to the rescinded Biden-era Executive Order 14110 — Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI, and it pursues preemption that prevents state regulation rather than creating new federal regulatory obligations.
Signed: December 11, 2025 Type: Executive Order
Key provisions
The order establishes five principal mechanisms:
- AI Litigation Task Force — the Attorney General is directed to challenge state AI laws that unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce or conflict with federal pro-innovation policy.
- State law evaluation — the Commerce Secretary is directed to identify onerous state AI laws within 90 days.
- Funding restrictions — states with "onerous AI laws" may lose federal broadband (BEAD) funding, and agencies may condition discretionary grants on AI regulatory compliance.
- Federal preemption rulemaking — the FCC and FTC are directed to issue standards and policy statements preempting conflicting state laws.
- Legislative recommendation — the order directs preparation of a uniform federal AI framework, with carve-outs for child safety, AI infrastructure, and state procurement.
Targeted state laws
The order explicitly names the Colorado AI Act's algorithmic discrimination provisions as potentially requiring AI to "produce false results." It implicitly threatens state transparency laws, including CA SB 53 and the NY RAISE Act.
Regulatory approach
The order pursues ceiling preemption: using federal authority to prevent state regulation rather than to create new federal regulation. This approach conflicts with the AI LEAD Act's floor preemption approach, which allows stronger state protections.
Implementation since signing
The order set several dated deliverables that came due through the first half of 2026. The AI Litigation Task Force, directed to be established under the Attorney General no later than January 10, 2026, was announced on January 9, 2026, with a sole mandate to challenge state AI laws inconsistent with the order's policy (Source: whitecase.com). The Commerce Secretary's evaluation of "onerous" state AI laws, together with the BEAD-funding Policy Notices to affected states, was due within 90 days (by approximately March 11, 2026); early tracking by outside counsel noted the evaluation was not publicly released on that timeline (Source: hklaw.com).
In March 2026 the White House released a National Policy Framework for AI, the legislative-recommendation deliverable the order directed, setting out a set of recommendations to Congress for a uniform federal approach that would occupy the field the order seeks to clear of state law (Source: hklaw.com).
The order's first operational test came through the Colorado AI Act (SB 24-205), which it had named. Rather than a Task Force-initiated suit, the challenge arrived as private litigation the federal government then joined: after xAI sued to enjoin the Act in xAI v. Weiser (filed April 9, 2026), the Department of Justice moved to intervene on the plaintiff's side on April 24, 2026 — the first time the DOJ had intervened in a case challenging a state AI law — arguing the Act violated the Equal Protection Clause (Source: axios.com). The district court stayed the Act's enactment on April 27, 2026, and on May 14, 2026 the Colorado legislature passed and Governor Polis signed SB 26-189, repealing and reenacting the 2024 Act as a narrower disclosure-and-transparency framework (Source: nortonrosefulbright.com). The sequence left the order's named target substantially rewritten before it took effect, though through a combination of private litigation, DOJ intervention, and state legislative retreat rather than the order's own funding-condition and agency-rulemaking mechanisms.
Relation to EO 14110 and EO 14148
EO 14365 replaces the Biden-era AI posture with federal preemption of state AI laws. The rescission of the prior framework was carried out by a separate instrument: EO 14148, signed January 20, 2025, was the rescission instrument that struck down Executive Order 14110 — Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI, the Biden omnibus AI executive order. EO 14365, signed December 11, 2025, is the successor substantive framework.
Reactions
State and local tech leaders treated AI preemption as "top of mind" one month after the signing, according to Route Fifty's Chris Teale (January 26, 2026), who reported that "Observers called for an intergovernmental working group as well as better collaboration." Teale framed this reception as a counterpoint to the populist-conservative coalition that defeated the broader 10-year state-AI-regulation moratorium in summer 2025 (see How MAGA learned to love AI safety — Nicky Woolf (Transformer, October 2025)), with local tech officials more amenable to federal coordination than the populist base (Source: route-fifty.com).
A January 27, 2026 op-ed in the Daily Signal defended preemption, framing the case for "one rulebook for AI" in fiscal-federalism terms and arguing that AI's interstate operation requires federal-level coordination to prevent compliance fragmentation. The op-ed is supportive of the order's posture and is a position rather than independent evidence (Source: dailysignal.com).
Parallel private litigation — xAI v. Weiser
xAI Corp. v. Weiser (D. Colo. 1:26-cv-01515, filed April 9, 2026) was the first major private-sector constitutional challenge to land after the order. It was not itself a Task Force action, but it aligned with the order's preemption posture: the order specifically named the Colorado AI Act as a target of federal concern, and xAI's complaint advanced much the same argument through private enforcement. The federal government subsequently entered the case — the DOJ moved to intervene on the plaintiff's side on April 24, 2026 (Source: axios.com), and the court stayed the Act's enactment on April 27, 2026 before Colorado replaced it with SB 26-189 on May 14, 2026 (see Implementation since signing, above).
The outcome bears on how load-bearing the order's own mechanisms become. If xAI prevails on its First Amendment theory — that training-data, system-prompt, and guardrail design are expressive editorial acts — the First Amendment would accomplish much of the preemption the order seeks through ceiling preemption, reducing the order's practical reach while vindicating its substantive direction. If xAI loses, the order's federal-preemption mechanisms (FCC/FTC statements, funding conditions, legislative recommendations) become more load-bearing. The Colorado sequence supplied an early data point in the intervention direction: federal intervention plus state legislative retreat, rather than the order's funding-condition and rulemaking tools, produced the practical result.
Relationships
- supersedes: Executive Order 14110 — Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy AI — Biden omnibus AI EO rescinded Jan 20, 2025 (via EO 14148, the rescission instrument) and framework reversed
- related: America's AI Action Plan — companion strategy document
- related: xAI LLC v. Weiser — Complaint (D. Colo. 1:26-cv-01515) — private-sector parallel to the AI Litigation Task Force's anti-preemption posture
- related: Colorado AI Act (SB 24-205) and SB 25B-004 (Date Amendment) — named state-law target of the EO
Sources
- EO 14365 source summary
- xAI v. Weiser complaint — parallel private challenge to a named state-law target