In brief
In a turn of events, the White House has described its recent meeting with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as 'productive.' This meeting follows Anthropic's unveiling of the Claude Mythos AI tool, which could potentially outperform humans in cybersecurity tasks. Despite prior criticisms from the administration labeling the firm as a 'radical left, woke company', the discussion centered around collaboration opportunities and addressing the challenges of scaling impactful AI technology. Recent tensions were highlighted by Anthropic’s legal case against the Pentagon concerning supply chain risk designations, which the company argues is retaliation for its refusal to grant the Department of Defense unrestricted access to its AI systems.
The White House has said it has had a 'productive and constructive' meeting with the head of artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, which is suing the US Department of Defense.
The meeting comes a week after the firm released its Claude Mythos preview, an AI tool that the company claims can outperform humans at some hacking and cyber-security tasks.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei spoke to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on Friday, Axios reports.
A representative of Anthropic did not comment on the meeting, which comes two months after the White House derided the firm as a 'radical left, woke company.'
So far, only a few dozen companies have been given access to Mythos, which researchers have said is 'strikingly capable at computer security tasks'. The tool can find bugs lurking in decades-old code, according to Anthropic, and autonomously find ways to exploit them.
Last week, Amodei said the company had 'spoken to officials across the US government' and offered to work with them. Friday's meeting is a sign that Anthropic's technology may be too critical for even the US government to do without - despite the Trump administration's tough stance against the firm.
The statement added that the meeting had 'explored the balance between advancing innovation and ensuring safety'.
In March, Anthropic took legal action against the Defense Department and other federal agencies after the firm was labelled a 'supply chain risk'.
It was the first time a US company had been publicly given the label, which means a technology is not secure enough for government use. Anthropic has been used in high-level government and military work since 2024. It argued in court that the label was simple retaliation by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, because Amodei had refused to grant the Pentagon unfettered use of its AI tools over fears of Anthropic being used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.
While a federal court in California has largely agreed, a federal appeals court has denied the firm's request to temporarily block the supply chain risk designation. Nevertheless, Anthropic's tools are still in use at many of the government agencies that had been using them before the designation, according to court records.
Until Friday, the White House had said little positive about Anthropic. When US President Donald Trump directed all government agencies to stop using Anthropic, he wrote on social media that the company was run by 'left wing nut jobs', who were attempting to 'strong arm' defense. 'We don't need it, we don't want it, and will not do business with them again!' he said.
As Trump arrived for an event in Phoenix, Arizona on Friday, he was asked by reporters about the Anthropic CEO's visit to the White House. The president said he had 'no idea' about the meeting.
