President Donald Trump held a press conference with top tech executives on Tuesday after they signed a voluntary “morally binding” accord at the White House to self-police artificial intelligence development to address Americans’ growing fears around the technology.

“I’m seeing tremendous self-policing, and they understand that they have to self-police,” Trump told reporters outside the West Wing. Trump has repeatedly advocated faster AI development despite industry concerns that companies are moving too quickly.

The accord promises that the companies will implement “robust internal controls” and work with an “independent external auditor.” Trump, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and xAI founder Elon Musk signed it. (Notably, the word “United States” was misspelled under Trump’s signature line on the document.)

Clips from the meeting between executives and reporters have been circulating online. One in particular, in which Anthropic’s Amodei speaks to the press, has almost 10 million views as of reporting.

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Two body language experts told HuffPost that the footage shows a striking behavioral contrast among the men on the screen, and that Amodei’s behavior in particular reads as uncomfortable. Both stressed to HuffPost that they were describing visible behavior in the short clips, not what people in the video may be thinking.

Patti Wood, an author who studies nonverbal communication, pointed out that Amodei kept his arms close to his side and was pushing one hand into the other, which she said is usually a self-comforting tactic.

“This is a very important meeting — not just nationally, but internationally,” Wood said. “What’s interesting to me is that lack of confidence and lack of preparation. … It’s so telling to me that these men aren’t prepared.”

It’s not clear whether the press conference was planned; neither the White House nor Anthropic responded to HuffPost’s request for comment as of publication.

Abbie Maroño, a behavioral scientist, described Amodei as physically contained, with little gesturing and limited facial animation. She told HuffPost this can come across as unease, particularly because it contrasts with the people around him.

One of those people around him is Trump, whose behavior Maroño called “almost the opposite.”

I literally can't focus on anything but Dario here 😭 pic.twitter.com/WlszjlXEIn

“His behavior is much more expansive; he readily directs his attention around the group and, importantly, repeatedly controls the conversational floor,” Maroño said about Trump. “Behaviorally, he occupies a very clear position as the person controlling who has the floor and when.”

Wood said Trump seemed to disengage as soon as Amodei started talking.

“He turns completely away; he is not paying attention at all,” Wood said. “Trump pats him on the back and kind of zones out of the conversation and then immediately sort of turns behind him to Mark Zuckerberg.”

Wood noted two things about this moment. The patting on the back is an action Trump does often, she said, to assert dominance while playing it off as friendly. “He did it last week several times with Chairman Xi of China,” Wood said. “It’s a mixed message because it appears on the surface [as] ‘Buddy, I’m your pal.’ … But it’s also a strike; it’s a physical hit on the other person … a symbolic weapon behavior.”

The second is that Trump then turns away and hides what Wood calls his heart window, a posture men use to face people they are engaged with, and turn from when they’re not.

“It’s not consciously showing disrespect, but it’s more like, ‘I am not into this,’” Wood said. “I want to move on to something else.”

Trump then gets a hold of Zuckerberg, who was standing behind him, and pulls him to the front of the group. Maroño said Zuckerberg appears “more socially responsive to Trump” and that the engagement between the two while Amodei is speaking creates a “two-on-one dynamic” among the three men. She said it is impossible to know what they were saying or laughing about, and did not infer they were laughing at Amodei.

Wood suggested this is Trump’s way of making Zuckerberg “the star,” even while Amodei is speaking. Then, when Amodei is done, Trump asks Zuckerberg to speak. In Wood’s reading, Zuckerberg looks alarmed.

“Zuckerberg [is] like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Like, fear,” Wood said. “His eyes get small, his mouth opens slightly like, ‘What am I going to do?’ And then he slightly steps forward and begins to speak.”

“That group dynamic is probably the most interesting part of the footage for me,” Maroño said. “I do think the online reaction is responding to a noticeable behavioral contrast. It is the contrast between the three men, rather than any single gesture from Amodei, that makes the interaction look so striking and has likely contributed to the attention the footage has received.”

Neither the White House, Anthropic, nor Meta responded to HuffPost’s requests for comment.

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