81% of young Americans distrust AI CEOs — CNBC survey reveals industry-wide crisis

CNBC and Generation Lab surveyed 1,088 Americans aged 18–34 about their attitudes toward the artificial intelligence industry. The results paint a grim picture for the sector's leadership.

Nearly half of respondents (45%) believe AI will negatively impact their careers, while only 10% expect it to help them. 40% want the federal government to establish AI regulations, and 36% think an independent expert body should oversee the industry. Only 8% oppose any form of AI regulation. A striking 60% believe data center construction should be slowed down, with just 15% supporting its acceleration.

When asked about trust in AI company leaders, the results were overwhelmingly negative. The most distrusted executive is Palantir CEO Alex Karp, with 81% of respondents saying they don't trust him. He is followed by Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel (79%) and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (76%). Google's Sundar Pichai has a distrust rating of 74%. More public-facing industry leaders also fare poorly: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg both have 71% distrust, Elon Musk stands at 70%, and OpenAI's Sam Altman at 69%. The best result among all executives belongs to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who received 35% trust and 65% distrust — still a negative score, but notably higher than any of his peers.

The survey also touched on political and economic views. 46% of young Americans identify as left-leaning Democrats, while 23% view that orientation unfavorably. Nearly 80% rate the current state of the U.S. economy negatively.