President Trump plans to host Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at a private White House dinner on Sunday evening, September 27, in what will be the first one-on-one meeting between the two1,4. Axios broke the news, and CNBC and TechCrunch independently confirmed the plans2.
The invitation followed Amodei's absence from Trump's state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg were all in attendance5. Amodei had a scheduling conflict, and Trump personally invited him to the private dinner afterward, according to sources familiar with the details.
A strained relationship
Anthropic's relationship with the Trump administration has been under strain for much of the past year. The Pentagon designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk after the company attempted to put guardrails around military use of its technology, and Anthropic has been fighting that designation in court. Defense Secretary Hegseth accused Anthropic of duplicity, saying the company tried to "strong-arm the United States military into submission" when negotiations collapsed in February over how the military could use Anthropic's models.
Other administration officials have struck a different tone. Michael Kratsios said the administration was in a "good cadence" with Anthropic and that the company was openly sharing models with the government as part of Trump's voluntary AI executive order. Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown, who serves as the company's chief compute officer, has taken on a more active role interfacing with the administration in recent months and reportedly led Anthropic's negotiations with the Commerce Department over its export control directive, replacing Amodei in that role.
Political and cultural backdrop
Amodei supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Earlier this month, he publicly urged the AI industry to slow the pace of advanced model development and better address potential risks, publishing a three-step proposal that called for additional government oversight. Trump has insisted, without evidence, that the AI safety backlash is a Democratic hoax and has pushed to rebrand the technology as "super intelligence".
Last week, Trump allies circulated talking points to the White House emphasizing Amodei's role in the effective altruism movement. Months ago, when Anthropic first explored arranging a one-on-one with Trump, some advisers cautioned against it because "Dario's a little too weird" for Trump, according to one source. Amodei was also lampooned on the latest episode of Saturday Night Live over his personality traits and AI safety views.
The Sunday dinner serves as a precursor to a broader White House meeting on Tuesday, when Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson plan to host top AI CEOs. Anthropic is also gearing up for what is widely expected to be a blockbuster IPO.
ANALYSIS The private dinner format, rather than a group setting, gives Amodei a direct channel to address the Pentagon supply-chain designation and export-control frictions that have defined Anthropic's Washington posture all year, at a moment when the company's IPO timeline raises the stakes of any unresolved government friction.