Trump hosts Anthropic’s Dario Amodei for a private Sunday White House dinner
President Trump plans to host Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at a private White House dinner on Sunday evening, sources familiar with the plans told Axios’s Maria Curi and Marc Caputo. It would be the first one-on-one meeting between the two, just Amodei and Trump rather than the big CEO group, and sources framed it as a thaw after a year of tension with administration officials and allies.
Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson still plan to meet top AI CEOs at the White House on Tuesday, with Sunday’s private table as the appetizer. Last week, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google’s Sundar Pichai flanked Trump at a state dinner; Amodei was the notable absence, citing a scheduling conflict. Afterward, Trump personally invited him, one source said.
Amodei has become a pop-culture target as much as a policy one. The latest Saturday Night Live mocked his personality and AI safety views, and last week Trump allies circulated talking points to the White House about his role in the effective altruism movement. Months ago, when Anthropic first floated a one-on-one, some advised against it because “Dario’s a little too weird” for Trump, a senior official told Axios.
A White House official stuck to the administration line: “President Trump has been clear: America will lead the world in Super Intelligence, while protecting American consumers,” and will “drive innovation, strengthen American competitiveness, and ensure this transformative technology works for the American people.”
Opponents are also running a separate track. Axios reviewed a highly negative brief about Amodei circulating to the White House ahead of the dinner. The document is not an internal White House paper; it casts Amodei as having “a long record of attacking Trump” and “deep Democratic ties,” and cites Anthropic’s falling-out earlier this year with the Pentagon as a “clear example of Dario showing he doesn’t trust President Trump.”
A supply-chain risk label is a Pentagon designation that can block government contractors from using a vendor. Anthropic has been fighting that fight in court.
The brief, whose origin is unclear, is intended for Trump’s eyes and is likely to reach him, a source familiar with White House workings told Axios. One line is written in “Trump Talk”: “Dario claimed that AI would eliminate half of all entry-level white collar jobs as soon as this year. WRONG!”
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company is valued at hundreds of billions of dollars and has plans to go public soon, Axios noted, without naming a date or a precise figure. “The WH is trying to get everyone seated at the table,” one source said.
TechCrunch, citing a source familiar with Amodei’s plans, flagged Amodei’s caution call against Trump’s line that AI backlash is a Democratic hoax and his push to rebrand the race as "super intelligence."
The critics' brief is still racing the plates.
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