US and China Set September AI Talks on Risks, Competition

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have turned their attention to shaping how Americans understand their own history, issuing separate but overlapping demands for what they call greater accuracy in depictions of the past. The moves come as the pair deepen ties between government functions and corporate technology, raising questions about who gets to define the national record.

On July 22, Musk announced on X that his AI company xAI would release a feature-length film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey by the end of the year. He described the project as both "historically accurate" and faithful to the original text. Two days later, Trump signed an executive order requiring the Smithsonian Institution to post signs outside its museums warning visitors of "inaccurate information" inside the exhibits. The order also directs people toward unspecified "locations and resources for accurate information regarding America's history."

The language of accuracy appears in both announcements, yet historians note that claims of restoring objective truth often mask efforts to promote particular interpretations. Museums have long faced political pressure over how they present slavery, indigenous displacement, and civil rights, but the new order gives the executive branch direct authority to label exhibits as flawed and steer the public elsewhere.

Musk's AI ambitions extend beyond entertainment. Grok, the chatbot built by xAI, is positioned to compete with other large language models while drawing on Musk's control of X for training data. Critics argue that private companies with close government relationships now hold unprecedented power to produce and distribute historical content at scale. When the same entities also influence federal agencies, the line between public history and proprietary product grows thin.

The administration's broader restructuring of government has accelerated this fusion. Musk's Department of Government Efficiency initiative has already reduced the IRS workforce by roughly one third, leaving the tax agency struggling to answer calls or process disputes. Former commissioners and congressional oversight staff warned beforehand that such cuts would impair basic operations. The pattern of rapid personnel reductions across agencies coincides with increased reliance on outside technology firms for data management and content generation.

Trump's order on the Smithsonian does not specify which exhibits are inaccurate or name the alternative resources visitors should consult. It instead creates a mechanism for directing the public away from existing displays. Similar efforts in other countries have used state branding of "corrected" history to sideline dissenting scholarship. In the United States, the Smithsonian's collections have been developed over decades through peer-reviewed research and public consultation. Replacing that process with executive signage and AI-generated alternatives bypasses those safeguards.

Musk has presented his Odyssey film as a corrective to modern distortions, yet the original epic itself contains multiple, sometimes contradictory, versions of events. Scholars have long studied how ancient texts were shaped by the political needs of their time. Treating any single adaptation as the definitive historical record repeats the very problem Musk claims to solve.

The combined effect is a narrowing of sources the public is encouraged to trust. When government signage and corporate AI models point in the same direction, the result is not greater accuracy but greater centralization of narrative authority. Historians and museum professionals are now considering how to document the changes and preserve access to the research that preceded them.