Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is scheduled to have dinner with President Donald Trump at the White House tonight, according to Axios, which TechCrunch confirmed with a source. It will be the first one-on-one meeting between the two, who have recently clashed over AI safety policy. Amodei has proposed a plan to slow AI development, while Trump has dismissed the AI backlash as a Democratic hoax and pushed to rebrand the technology as 'super intelligence.'
The dinner comes at a complicated moment for Anthropic's relationship with the administration. On Friday, a federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C., upheld the Pentagon's decision to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk. That designation, which followed the collapse of negotiations over military use of Anthropic's models, bars the U.S. military and defense contractors from using the company's technology. Anthropic has sued to reverse the blacklisting and could still petition for a rehearing or appeal to the Supreme Court.
Other parts of the administration have signaled a friendlier stance. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who temporarily imposed export controls on two Anthropic models in June, told Axios this month that the company is 'back on the right side' and said 'We trust Anthropic' at a G20 event. White House OSTP Director Michael Kratsios said the administration is 'in a good cadence' with Anthropic and that the company is sharing models with the government under Trump's voluntary AI executive order. CNBC notes that Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown has taken a more active role in interfacing with the administration, leading negotiations with the Commerce Department.
The two CNBC reports agree on these details, while TechCrunch adds that Amodei was lampooned on Saturday Night Live's season premiere and notes that he and Trump have been on opposite sides of the AI safety debate. The contrasting signals from Commerce and the Pentagon suggest the dinner may test whether the administration's warmer words translate into policy changes.