WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump planned to have a late dinner Sunday with Dario Amodei, CEO of artificial intelligence company Anthropic, despite the executive’s recent clashes with the administration over the military’s use of AI.
Trump told reporters after returning to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland that he would meet Amodei for dinner at 10 p.m. The gathering came two days after Anthropic suffered a legal setback in its challenge to the government’s decision to bar its products from Defense Department work.
The confrontation between Anthropic and the Pentagon began in February, when Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused the company of posing a national security threat and classified it as a supply chain risk. Amodei had resisted pressure to change course, citing concerns that Anthropic’s technology could be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons.
On Friday, a federal appeals court rejected Anthropic’s challenge to the government’s designation. The ruling permits the Pentagon to continue removing the company’s Claude AI models from its systems.
Trump has strongly promoted artificial intelligence and frequently says the United States must stay ahead of China in the technology race. Amodei, however, said earlier this month that the industry should slow its rapid development long enough for safety protections to keep pace. Without a pause, he warned, AI could within six to 12 months become capable of directing a swarm of agents able to seize control of the entire internet.
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His comments reflect growing concern both within the technology sector and among the broader public about increasingly powerful AI systems. Although these tools can solve problems beyond human capabilities, critics fear they could malfunction, act independently or be used for damaging purposes. Those concerns have also influenced OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Its CEO told Fortune that the company plans to wait until next year before selling stock to Wall Street investors while it concentrates on safety.
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AP White House reporter Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
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