WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is expected to have dinner Sunday night with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who sparked the ire of the president earlier this month when he called for a slowdown of artificial intelligence.
Trump is planning to host Amodei at the White House, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to confirm the private dinner.
The dinner comes as the Trump administration appears increasingly focused on meeting with AI and technology executives amid concerns about the potential risks of the rapidly developing technology.
Trump on Thursday dined with other AI executives during a state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping. He is also scheduled to hold a summit on Tuesday with technology executives to discuss AI and to unveil a new government website designed to help Americans navigate federal information, according to a White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview the event.
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Amodei co-founded Anthropic, which makes the Claude chatbot, and has warned about the safety risks of AI for years. Earlier this month, he urged global cooperation in creating rules around AI development. Trump has rejected such concerns.
“The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel,’” Trump said in a social media post earlier this month. “And we will continue to do so!”
While Trump has dismissed potential serious threats around AI as a “hoax,” some in the Trump administration have pushed for a more cautious approach to the technology. Trump’s dinner with Amodei may suggest an openness to hear out those warnings.
The White House and Anthropic declined to comment. Axios earlier reported on the dinner with Trump and Amodei.
The Trump administration and Anthropic, which is pursuing a hotly anticipated initial public offering, also clashed earlier this year when the company was effectively cut off from working with the federal government after battling with the Pentagon. The two sides disagreed in negotiations over a $200 million contract, with the company’s insisting that its AI technology not be used in mass surveillance of Americans or for autonomous lethal weapons.
The Pentagon later designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security,” preventing the San Francisco company from working with any military contractor or supplier.
The administration scored a legal victory on Friday when a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that it had acted legally and constitutionally when it said Anthropic was a national security risk and barred the company from working with the government.
The ruling left Anthropic in an awkward position, one that Amodei may have an opportunity to address with Trump on Sunday night.
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