Despite being recently designated as a supply chain risk by the Department of Defense, Anthropic is still in talks with Trump administration officials.
There have long been signs of a rift, or a sense that not all parts of the administration want to cut ties with Anthropic, with reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell are encouraging the heads of major banks to try Anthropic’s new Mythos model.
Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark seemed to agree, insisting that the ongoing battle over supply chain risk designation was a “narrow contract dispute” and would not impede the company’s willingness to brief the government on its latest model.
And on Friday, Axios reported that Bessent and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. The White House said in a statement that the meeting was an “introductory meeting” that was “productive and constructive.”
“We discussed opportunities for cooperation and common approaches and protocols to address the challenges associated with scaling this technology,” the White House said.
Similarly, Anthropic released a statement confirming that Amodei “met with government officials to have productive discussions about how Anthropic and the U.S. government can work together on important shared priorities, including cybersecurity, America’s lead in the AI race, and the safety of AI.”
The company added: “We look forward to continuing these discussions.”
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The dispute between Anthropic and the Department of Defense appears to have begun after negotiations over the military’s use of Anthropic’s models failed. AI companies sought to maintain safeguards regarding the use of their technology for fully autonomous weapons and large-scale domestic surveillance. (OpenAI soon announced its own military agreement, sparking consumer backlash.)
The Department of Defense subsequently declared Anthropic a supply chain risk. This label is generally reserved for foreign adversaries and could significantly limit a government’s use of the Anthropic model. The company is challenging that designation in court.
But other members of the Trump administration don’t seem to share the Pentagon’s hostility, with one administration official telling Axios that “every government agency” except the Pentagon wants to use the company’s technology.
