Donald Trump and Dario Amodei had dinner at the White House on Sunday evening. It was the first time the two met one on one. Trump confirmed the date himself, in a Fox News interview he gave on the sidelines of the Presidents Cup golf tournament in Illinois.
Going in, his position hadn’t moved. Trump repeated that new rules would hand China an opening. “We’re about maybe a year and a half up on China,” he said. “We’re leading, and we’re building tremendous, trillions of dollars’ worth of places. And why should we give that up?” He called Amodei’s worry about speed raising the risks a fair one. The lead mattered more.
How the dinner came about
On Thursday, Trump hosted a state dinner for Xi Jinping. Sam Altman was there. So were Elon Musk, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg. Amodei wasn’t. He had a scheduling conflict, so Trump invited him privately instead, CNBC reports, citing a person familiar with the details.
The relationship has been strained for a year. Amodei backed Kamala Harris and criticised Trump openly. Earlier this month he published a three-step proposal urging the industry to slow down, and Trump answered on Truth Social: the only guardrails AI needs are a strong and smart president, and his administration has stopped people like Dario from doing bad things. On top of that sits the fight with the Pentagon, where an appeals court last week upheld the supply-chain-risk label.
There are warmer signals too. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who imposed export controls on two Anthropic models in June, told Axios this month that the company is “back on the right side”. He shared a stage with co-founder Tom Brown. Brown, the chief compute officer, has taken over the talks with Commerce in Amodei’s place. Michael Kratsios at the White House described a “good cadence” with Anthropic.
Somebody is circulating a brief against Amodei
Shortly before the dinner, opponents of Amodei put a sharply negative document about him into circulation at the White House. Axios reviewed it. Who is behind it isn’t in the report. It fits the memo that turned Amodei into the face of AI doom three days ago: somebody in Washington is working against Anthropic’s CEO in a fairly organised way.
The White House itself stayed general. Trump has been clear that America will lead the world in super intelligence while protecting American consumers, a spokesperson told CNBC.
The IPO has a seat at the table
Anthropic is heading for what’s widely expected to be a blockbuster listing. A company in that position does not want a president who calls the safety debate a hoax in public, and whose defence department bars its models from contractors. That Trump issued the invitation himself is therefore worth more to Anthropic than anything the dinner could have produced in substance.
Whether it worked shows up in the next thing the White House says, not before. Sunday afternoon’s tone gives no sign that Trump is moving. It does suggest he’s willing to say it to Amodei’s face instead of posting about him. That’s a difference.
Sources
- Axios: Scoop: Anthropic’s Dario Amodei to have White House dinner with Trump
- Axios: Amodei critics target Trump with hit piece before White House dinner
- Reuters: Trump confirms meeting with Anthropic’s Amodei, repeats dismissal of AI fears
- CNBC: Anthropic CEO Amodei set to meet with Trump after missing state dinner
- TechCrunch: Anthropic’s CEO is about to have dinner with President Trump