Scott Bessent has been raising the alarm on AI policy. But the delays keep coming.

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The administration’s early response to Mythos sparked a turf clash, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressing that a top White House cyber official was not moving quickly enough.

Sean Cairncross, White House national cyber director, at the Semafor World Economy event in Washington on April 15. | Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has privately expressed alarm about the slow pace of progress on AI policy, even before the White House again delayed an executive order on the subject Thursday.

The drafting of the executive order has exposed tensions between Bessent, who has taken on an outsize role in the policy’s creation, and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, according to a senior White House official, another senior U.S. official and two other people familiar with the dynamics. They, like some others in this report, were granted anonymity to speak freely about a closely held policy.