Anthropic’s CEO has shared a memo with employees in a cautious tone as the company moves toward seeking investment from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. “I really wish we weren’t in this position, but we are,” Dario Amodei, CEO, Anthropic wrote in the memo shared via Slack.
The memo informs the employees about the ethical risks in taking money from the Gulf states. But Anthropic needs this capital to stay competitive. “This is a real downside and I’m not thrilled about it,” Amodei wrote. “Unfortunately, I think ‘No bad person should ever benefit from our success’ is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on.”
This statement comes as Anthropic had avoided funding from authoritarian governments earlier. CNBC previously reported that the AI giant had declined to take money from Saudi Arabia because of national security concerns.
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Now, the AI giant is opening doors to a huge amount of capital, stating that Anthropic would pursue a “narrowly scoped, purely financial investment from Gulf countries” so that the company has a control over their decisions. However, the CEO of Anthropic sent this warning note at the same time to inform the employees of any potential adjustments Anthropic may experience as a result of this impending financial deal.
“The implicit promise of investing in future rounds can create a situation where they have some soft power, making it a bit harder to resist these things in the future,” Amodei said. “In fact, I actually am worried that getting the largest possible amounts of investment might be difficult without agreeing to some of these other things.”
Anthropic CEO Amodei further elaborated on the scenario, stating, “But I think the right response to this is simply to see how much we can get without agreeing to these things… and then hold firm if they ask.”
“Since AI is likely to be the most powerful technology in the world, these governments can use it to gain military dominance or to gain leverage over democratic countries,” Amodei added.
Amodei observed a huge trend at the broader level with tech firms been in partnerships with the Gulf, stating “Unfortunately, having failed to prevent that dynamic at the collective level, we’re now stuck with it as an individual company.
“We are also interested in serving the region commercially, which is something I think is actually pure positive,” he wrote, “In fact, it could have important benefits for the world in including improving human health, aiding economic development, etc.” Anthropic CEO concluded, stating “As with many decisions, this one has downsides, but we believe it’s the right one overall.” He tried justifying this call by emphasizing on the fact that the AI company won’t build data centers in the region and enforce its use policies.
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Anthropic has quickly become one of the most talked-about companies in the AI space, with its value and customer base growing at a remarkable pace. Back in March 2025, it raised $3.5 billion in Series E funding, bringing its valuation to $61.5 billion. Now, just a few months later, there’s already buzz about a fresh round of funding that could push that number past $100 billion. On the business side, things are moving just as fast as its annual revenue is expected to hit $4 billion this year and could grow nearly fivefold by 2027.
The company’s AI system Claude is being used by a mix of forward-looking companies like Cursor, GitLab, Sourcegraph, and Bridgewater Associates, with support through platforms like AWS Bedrock and Google Vertex AI. On the consumer end, it’s showing up in real-world tools like Replit’s coding agent, Thomson Reuters’ legal assistant, healthcare solutions at Novo Nordisk, and even voice experiences with Alexa+ for Prime users. All of this points to a company that’s becoming a central player in how AI is being built into everyday work and life.