The White House said on 3 August that the framework required by Executive Order 14409 is complete: "The voluntary framework outlined in the June 2nd executive order is complete. Discussions with industry about next steps are underway." A closed-door meeting with developers followed on 4 August.
What the order actually requires
EO 14409 was signed 2 June 2026 and published in the Federal Register on 5 June. It directs the design of "a voluntary framework with AI developers through which developers would be able to… engage the Federal Government to determine whether model(s) under development meet the designation of 'covered frontier model.'" The 60-day clock ran to 1 August.
Voluntary means voluntary
This is not a rule and not a statute. A developer decides whether to seek a determination at all, and nothing in the order compels participation. Representative Ted Lieu called the framework "COMPLETELY VOLUNTARY" and said companies are free to ignore it; Greg Casar and Pat Ryan objected to the voluntary approach as such.
Announced is not published
The distinction that matters here is between a statement and a document. No text has been released, no evaluation criteria are public, and the threshold for "covered frontier model" is unknown outside the meeting. There is also a timing dispute worth flagging as a dispute: the administration says it met the deadline, which fell two days before the announcement.
Who owns it
The order hands the work to the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War acting through the director of the NSA, and the Secretary of Homeland Security acting through the director of CISA — not to NIST or the science office, as much of the coverage assumes. It is a national-security assignment rather than a standards-body one, which shapes what "evaluation" is likely to mean in practice. Staff from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Meta were called to the 4 August meeting.