The News
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sought to repair strained relations with the White House on Thursday, meeting with Trump administration officials and a bipartisan group of senators. On the table for discussion were AI policy, export controls, and one area in which Anthropic is aligned with US President Donald Trump: “The importance of America and its democratic allies winning the AI race,” a company spokesperson told Semafor.
The frontier AI company has broken with its rivals by pushing for AI safety regulations. The Trump administration views the company as a drag on its efforts to maintain the US’ technological lead against China.
Earlier this year, Amodei criticized the proposed moratorium on state lawmaking around AI, which did not pass. More recently, AI Czar David Sacks accused the company of “running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering,” revolving around its executives’ disclosures of safety concerns.
Amodei appears to be leaning into the importance of American leadership as the Trump administration continues shaping US tech policy — including launching its version of an AI “Manhattan Project.”
The conversations were “productive and substantive,” the spokesperson said. “There’s clear bipartisan interest in ensuring American leadership in AI, and we look forward to continuing these discussions.”
Know More
Amodei’s argument that strong export controls are necessary to maintain US dominance runs in contrast to comments from Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, perpetuating a lobbying battle between the different tiers of American AI champions: GPU providers and model developers.
Huang discussed the exports with Trump and Republican lawmakers this week, telling reporters that sales restrictions on China haven’t slowed its advancements. Nvidia notched a win recently with a deal allowing it to resume sales to China of its H20 chip, a limited version of its powerful AI processors, while sharing 15% of that revenue with the US government. Prior to global tech competition heating up with the AI race, China was one of Nvidia’s largest markets. Now, it’s facing limitations from the US and pressure from China to support local chip suppliers.