Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) claimed a consensus on the necessity of legislation to regulate artificial intelligence on Wednesday as he hosted top tech executives for a closed-door forum at the Capitol.

“We have got some consensus in the forum on the need for AI regulation,” the New York Democrat said at a press conference halfway through the day’s events.

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The Senate gathered more than two dozen of the tech industry’s leaders, including X owner Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for an “AI Insight Forum” to discuss the state of AI and recommendations for guardrails. The event was a daylong series of lectures and speeches from the tech leaders behind closed doors and offered several of them a chance to voice their views on the future of the technology.

“Today, we begin an enormous and complex and vital undertaking: building a foundation for bipartisan AI policy that Congress can pass,” Schumer told the executives in a series of remarks before the forum.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) compared the call for Congress to act on AI to the calls for a Manhattan Project, the government-funded effort to build a nuclear bomb in World War II.

At least 60 senators and several staffers were in attendance, Schumer told reporters.

The event operated in a series of rounds, according to Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO). Each attendee was given three minutes to speak for several rounds. The groups argued with one another and discussed a variety of needs within the industry.

Speakers were consistent in saying that Congress needs to pass regulations and establish American leadership in the industry. “We need a referee,” Musk said.

When asked if legislation would pass soon, Schumer assured reporters that he intended to have something passed in “months.” The Senate majority leader also said he was in conversations with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and that the conclusions were “encouraging.”

He also slammed the European Union, arguing that “if you go too fast, you can ruin things. The EU went too fast” on AI regulation.

There was disagreement between attendees on whether AI should be allowed to operate as an open-source system or whether a more closed approach should be the norm.

Not all were as supportive of Schumer’s forum. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called for Congress to put an actual bill on the table rather than an echo of leaders calling for Congress to do something. When asked if she got a chance to ask Musk about his decision to pull Starlink access from Ukraine to thwart an attack on Russian ships, she noted that the event barred attendees from asking questions.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a similar critic of Big Tech and the forum, spent his time speaking with reporters outside of the event. He said he was not confident legislation would be passed and that the process is “trending toward circus.”

Hawley and Warren both slammed the forum earlier on Wednesday for its lack of transparency.

“While I appreciate Leader Schumer organizing today’s forum, Congress has always conducted its business in the sunshine, and today’s forum should have been no different,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said in a statement. “The American people deserve transparency.”

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Schumer said some of the future insight forums would be shared with the public but that he wanted an “unvarnished” conversation between the leaders for this one.

The event featured Musk, Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and several others.