Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, during an interview at Anthropic headquarters in San Francisco, California, United States, Thursday, April 30, 2026.
Jason Henry | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei will join President Donald Trump for a private dinner at the White House on Sunday, CNBC has confirmed, in what will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders.
Amodei was noticeably absent from Trump’s lavish state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, along with other tech bigwigs — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, EspaceX CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been photographed rubbing shoulders with government officials. Amodei had a scheduling conflict, so Trump invited him to a private dinner, according to a source familiar with the details who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The meeting, first reported by Axios, comes at a high-stakes time for Anthropic, which is gearing up for what is widely expected to be a blockbuster IPO. The company’s shaky relationship with the Trump administration has been strained for much of the last year, so Amodei’s meeting with the president could provide a valuable opportunity to ease tensions.
“President Trump has been clear: America will lead the world in super intelligence, while protecting American consumers,” a White House official said in a statement, responding to CNBC’s investigation into Sunday’s dinner. “We will drive innovation, strengthen American competitiveness, and ensure this transformative technology works for the American people.”
Amodei drew Trump’s ire earlier this month by publicly urging the AI industry to slow the pace of developing advanced models and better manage potential risks. He released a three-step proposal and called for additional government oversight, which angered the president even though it gained support from other industry leaders like Altman and Musk.
“The only check or ‘guardrail’ that AI needs is a STRONG, INTELLIGENT (high IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the United States has those, in spades!,” Trump wrote in an article on Truth Social. “The Trump administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things’, like Dario (Anthropic!), who now claims to be a ‘perfect little angel’ – and we will continue to do so!”
Amodei was already in a difficult situation with the president, as he had supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and was a vocal critic of Trump.
But before Amodei’s call for a slowdown shook the tech sector, Anthropic’s relationship with the Trump administration appeared to be improving.
Sam Altman (left), CEO of OpenAI, and Mark Zuckerberg (right), CEO of Meta, attend a state dinner hosted by President Donald Trump in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, September 24, 2026.
Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who temporarily imposed export controls on two of the company’s most advanced models in June, told Axios earlier this month that Anthropic was “back on the good side.” He also hosted a fireside chat with Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in North Carolina.
Brown, who serves as Anthropic’s CIO, has taken a much more active role in interfacing with the Trump administration in recent months. He reportedly led the company’s negotiations with the Commerce Ministry over its export control directive, replacing Amodei in that role.
“We trust Anthropic,” Lutnick said on the sidelines of the event.
The same day, Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), told CNBC that the administration was “in a good groove” with Anthropic. He said the company was “open” and actively sharing models with the government as part of Trump’s voluntary executive order on AI.
Anthropic, however, had less success with Defense Department officials.
Negotiations between the company and the Pentagon soured in February after the two sides failed to agree on how the military could use its models. The DOD wanted Anthropic to grant the military unrestricted access to its models for any lawful purposes, while Anthropic wanted assurance that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or for domestic mass surveillance.
After negotiations failed, the DOD labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk, an unprecedented move that meant the company allegedly threatened U.S. national security. This designation prevents the U.S. military from using Anthropic’s models and prevents defense contractors from using them in their work with the agency.
Anthropic sued the Trump administration in an effort to overturn its blacklist, but the company suffered a blow Friday after a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., upheld the Pentagon’s action. The company could still request a rehearing and could also ask the Supreme Court to take up the matter.
Emile Michael, the DOD chief technology officer, celebrated the decision in an article on X.
“The hammer of justice has shattered @AnthropicAI’s arguments,” Michael wrote on Friday. “They represent a supply chain risk to the defense industrial base serving the @DeptofWar. Warfighters will sleep better knowing that no private company will insert their opinions into the chain of command. @SecWar was right!”
Defense Secretary Hegseth accused Anthropic of “duplicity” and claimed the company tried to “force the U.S. military into submission” when negotiations broke down in February. He reaffirmed this position in an article on X on Friday.
“Confirmed: @AnthropicAI = Supply Chain Risk,” Hegseth wrote. The @DeptofWar is doing what’s right for the country and our warriors. »
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