WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — President Donald Trump had a private dinner with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at the White House on Sunday, bringing the two together after months of disagreement over AI safeguards and the military use of Anthropic’s technology. The White House has not disclosed what they discussed.
Axios first reported plans for the dinner, describing it as their first one-on-one meeting. Trump confirmed the meeting before it took place and said he expected to discuss AI regulation with Amodei.
Trump has opposed slowing AI development, arguing that the United States must maintain its lead over China. Speaking to Fox News on Sunday at the Presidents Cup golf tournament in Illinois, he estimated that the United States was about a year to a year and a half ahead. That was Trump’s assessment, not an independently established measure of the two countries’ AI capabilities.
Amodei has called for stronger safeguards as AI systems grow more capable. His company’s dispute with the administration has centered in part on two uses of its Claude models: fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance of Americans. Anthropic says it supports other lawful national security uses of its technology but sought to exclude those two applications from its agreement with the Pentagon.
The disagreement reached a federal appeals court. On Friday, a divided panel upheld the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk. The ruling allows the department to remove Claude from its systems and bar its use on Defense Department work. Anthropic said it disagreed with the decision and was considering further review. A separate federal court in California had ruled against a related government action, leaving the legal disputes unresolved.
Sunday’s dinner also followed a White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping that Amodei missed because of a scheduling conflict, according to Axios. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson plan to meet with AI executives at the White House on Tuesday, and CBS News reported that Amodei expects to attend.
Neither the White House nor Anthropic has announced an agreement or a change in position following the private dinner.
