President Trump will host Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for a private White House dinner, marking their first one-on-one meeting days after a federal appeals court upheld the Pentagon’s decision to blacklist Anthropic as a "supply chain risk." Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, has resisted allowing its technology to power lethal weapons or mass surveillance. The invitation may signal a thaw after tensions, but neither side has disclosed the dinner agenda and it’s unclear if the Pentagon label will be discussed.
Trump To Host Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei At Private White House Dinner After Pentagon Blacklist
Photo by BeInCrypto
President Donald Trump will host Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for a private dinner at the White House on Sunday evening, Axios reported. The meeting, the first one-on-one between the two men, comes days after a federal appeals court upheld the Pentagon’s decision to label Anthropic a national security risk.
Anthropic, the San Francisco startup behind the AI chatbot Claude, was designated a "supply chain risk" by the Pentagon in March and barred from defense contracts. The department cited Claude’s built-in safeguards and an unresolved contracting dispute as reasons the system could be unreliable for military applications.
Anthropic has resisted requests to allow Claude to be used for lethal autonomous weapons or for mass surveillance of Americans, saying those limitations reflect the company’s safety stance and a commitment to civil liberties.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the Pentagon’s blacklist in a 2-1 decision. The dissenting judge argued that "a contractor's honest and upfront enforcement of restrictions" should not constitute valid grounds for blacklisting. A lower court had previously reached a different conclusion; District Judge Rita Lin said the government’s actions appeared intended "to make a public example" of Anthropic.
Axios described Sunday’s invitation as a possible thaw in relations after a fraught year between Anthropic and the administration. Trump personally invited Amodei after a scheduling conflict prevented the CEO from attending Thursday’s state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.
High-profile tech leaders including Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang were seated at the head table at that state dinner, Forbes reported. Despite the invitation, political criticism of Amodei has continued: a memo from a Trump political adviser recently labeled him a prominent voice of AI "doomerism," and Trump has posted criticisms on Truth Social about Amodei’s calls to slow AI development.
The meeting comes as Anthropic prepares for an initial public offering. The company has pushed a planned listing to November amid reports discussing valuations as high as roughly $2 trillion.
A White House official told Axios:
"President Trump has been clear: America will lead the world in Super Intelligence, while protecting American consumers."Neither the White House nor Anthropic has disclosed the dinner agenda, and it is unclear whether the Pentagon’s "supply chain risk" designation will be raised during the meeting.
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