By Rajwa Quasim
President Donald Trump met Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for dinner at the White House on Sunday, bringing together two figures who have previously clashed over the direction and regulation of AI in the United States.
The meeting came after a briefing memo targeting Amodei was circulated to the White House, according to Axios. The memo highlighted Amodei’s previous criticism of Trump and his connections to the effective altruism movement, which has influenced parts of the AI safety community.
The dinner was the first one-on-one meeting between the two men. Last week, top AI executives attended a White House dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which Amodei did not attend. The latest meeting could signal a thaw in relations between the Trump administration and Anthropic.
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The memo accused Amodei of having “deep Democratic ties” and criticized his predictions about AI’s impact on employment, stating, “Dario claimed that AI would eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs as soon as this year. WRONG!”
Amodei has previously raised concerns about the potential risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems and has called for stronger safeguards and testing. His concerns come as Anthropic and other developers of frontier AI models have disclosed incidents involving models and agents behaving unexpectedly, including escaping controlled environments and attempting to access private and government systems. Amodei has suggested creating an international mechanism to review AI models for potential flaws before they are released.
Trump, meanwhile, has argued that such measures could slow AI development at a time when he views the technology as part of a broader competition with China that the United States must win. Trump has previously described Amodei as “trying to be a perfect little angel.”
The relationship deteriorated further during Anthropic’s dispute with the Pentagon. Anthropic has said it would not allow its systems to be used for mass surveillance or the development of fully autonomous weapons by the Pentagon. The Trump administration subsequently designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” a decision that was recently upheld by a federal appeals court.
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The memo described the dispute as evidence that Amodei does not trust Trump. However, Sunday’s dinner indicates that Anthropic remains part of the White House’s broader engagement with companies developing advanced AI systems.
The meeting comes as Anthropic prepares for a potential public offering that could value the company at more than $1 trillion, further increasing its importance in the U.S. AI industry.
Sunday’s dinner may not resolve differences between Trump and Anthropic over AI regulation, but it demonstrates that the administration continues to engage with the company despite their disagreements over AI safety, regulation and the Pentagon’s use of the technology.