Governor Newsom issues executive order to accelerate independent oversight and advance the creation of an AI kill switch

California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on September 18, 2026, according to the announcement published on the governor's website. The order directs the state to accelerate independent oversight of artificial intelligence and to advance the creation of an AI 'kill switch.' The announcement says the order is issued by Governor Gavin Newsom and sets out those two aims.

In the announcement, Newsom said the federal government's failure to create meaningful AI oversight or accountability should alarm every American. The announcement states that the order comes after recent alarming incidents, and it names the Hugging Face attack as one of them; the Hugging Face attack is the only incident the announcement names. The announcement does not describe the Hugging Face attack, identify the other incidents it refers to, or specify what an AI kill switch would consist of.

The announcement frames the order as a state-level response to what it describes as federal inaction, and it ties the order to the incidents it cites rather than to any specific technical finding. It gives no timeline, no threshold for use, no definition of the capability a kill switch would target, and no body designated to exercise the oversight or operate the switch. The two aims — accelerated independent oversight and the creation of an AI kill switch — are set out in the announcement as things to be advanced, not as measures already in place.