President Donald Trump and his junk drawer of a Cabinet have managed to stick their foot in their mouth on more than one occasion since taking office, but the energy secretary’s latest comment seems atomically out of touch.
"We have to lead and win the AI race, just like we did Manhattan Project,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a video posted to X Tuesday. “This is Manhattan Project 2.”
Of course, it’s unclear which lens of history Wright is choosing to view his statement through.
On one hand, Wright—the former CEO of oil and gas giant Liberty Energy—could be approaching this from the perspective of the U.S. gaining a strong foothold in the (extremely controversial) race to build nuclear weapons.
On the other hand, Wright seems to be missing the part of history where the Manhattan Project led to the creation of atomic bombs that killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians during World War II.
Then again, the Trump administration celebrated on Monday the early completion of the U.S.’s new B61-13 nuclear gravity bomb, a pursuit that began under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
Bombs aside, Wright’s out-of-touch statement complements other pro-AI statements coming out of the White House in the past week alone.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin
On May 15, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin testified that he intends to make the U.S. the “AI capital of the world.”
Similarly to Zeldin, Wright is essentially arguing that the billionaires behind these AI companies need unfettered, unregulated access to resources. In a March speech, Wright noted that “AI is an energy-intensive manufacturing industry” and said that “we”—presumably the federal government—need to “get out of the way.”
“China is working aggressively in AI. If they got a meaningful lead on us in AI, it will be a different world in the future,” Wright said in Tuesday’s video.
Because of this, people like Zeldin, Wright, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are working to clear the way for these companies to have as much energy as possible.
On Zeldin’s end, he’s getting rid of the bureaucratic red tape that would get in the way so that these companies can plow through. And like a well-oiled, environment-wrecking machine, Burgum has created more offshore oil leases and allowed for more coal mines. He’s also fast-tracked a uranium mine in Utah, aiming to cut an approval process that would normally take a year down to just a few weeks.
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