White House AI Czar Clashes with Anthropic Over AI Regulation Strategy

Anthropic's AI Principles Make It a White House Target

On Tuesday, White House AI "czar" and venture capitalist David Sacks intensified a frustration that has been building for months. "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering," he wrote on X, referring to the company behind leading AI chatbot Claude. "It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem." The post quoted Jack Clark, Anthropic's British co-founder and head of policy. Clark, a former technology journalist, had shared an essay he wrote, "Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear," which discussed how he was "deeply afraid" of AI's trajectory. In a brief call on Tuesday afternoon, Clark told me he found Sacks' attack "perplexing."

Trump AI Czar Is Trying to Take Down Anthropic AI

David Sacks, a venture capitalist who has made much of his fortune investing in tech companies and currently serves as the Trump administration's "Crypto and AI Czar," is worried about regulatory capture. No, not his regulatory capture, that's fine. He's worried about Anthropic, one of the largest AI startups in the world, which he believes is cynically positioning itself as the pro-regulation company in order to push policies that it would benefit from while stifling others who want to get started in the AI sector. In a post on his personal X account, Sacks, who is still technically a part of the Trump administration as a special government employee, warned, "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering." According to Sacks, the startup is "principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem." Regulatory capture in the AI space is a real concern. Multi-billion-dollar companies regularly use their immense wealth to lobby for favorable policy. Tech companies successfully ran this playbook in the early 2020s, using lobbying efforts to get industry-approved digital privacy laws passed in state legislatures across the country. And there is no shortage of AI money flowing into lobbying right now. According to the Wall Street Journal, Silicon Valley firms have already poured more than $100 million into new Super PACs to push pro-AI messaging in the lead-up to midterm elections in 2026. Anthropic is certainly spending some of its money on lobbying, as well. Politico found the startup spent $910,000 in lobbying efforts during the second quarter of 2025, nearly tripling its spending from the quarter prior. It's also hired lobbying firm Continental Strategy to push its preferences in Washington, D.C. It's far from alone in that, of course. OpenAI spent even more last year than Anthropic has this year and has continued its lobbying efforts through 2025. But there's not much evidence to suggest that Anthropic is single-handedly the cause of states adopting AI protections. The company did recently throw its support behind a recently signed AI safety bill in California after previously opposing a similar effort the year priorâ€"but OpenAI's Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane also said that the company was "pleased" with the new law (though it was terrorizing some of the bill's biggest advocates, so take that with a grain of salt) and Meta called it a step in the right direction. Reportedly, there has been some tension between federal law enforcement agencies and Anthropic over the company's restrictions on using its tools for surveillance purposes, but that hasn't stopped Anthropic from readily working with the Trump administration. The company backed Trump's AI Action Plan, and the White House used the company's statement as evidence of support for the policies. Anthropic also joined the White House Pledge to America's Youth, supporting AI investment in education. CEO Dario Amodei has appeared at a summit with Trump, and Trump shouted out the company while making remarks about AI in healthcare. So it's not like there is a lot of tension between the administration and Anthropic, generally. Gizmodo contacted Anthropic about Sacks' comments, but the company did not offer an on-the-record response. Anthropic Co-Founder and Head of Policy Jack Clark did respond to Sacks on X, stating, "It's through working with the startup ecosystem that we've updated our views on regulation - and of importance for a federal standard," and said the company would "love" to work with the administration on regulatory matters and "supporting a new generation of startups leveraging AI." Sacks' comments about regulatory capture should ring entirely hollow, not because Anthropic and other AI firms wouldn't love to be the beneficiaries of such things, but because Sacks sure seems to be an active beneficiary of exactly that. Not only is he a Peter Thiel acolyte, but, along with Elon Musk, he's a member of the "PayPal Mafia," who successfully weaseled their way into the federal government. Since taking office, the Trump administration has happily handed out contracts to Thiel firms like Palantir. While Sacks and his venture capital firm Craft Ventures have claimed they divested large chunks of their investments in AI and crypto, it hasn't stopped questions from being raised about his position. In July, an AI startup called Vultron, which creates AI tools specifically for federal contractors, secured a $22 million funding round from Craft Ventures. In the press release announcing the funding, it made sure to mention Craft was “co-founded by White House AI adviser David Sacks.†Last month, Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Sacks asking if he had exceeded his 130-day limit as a special government employee. Sacks has reportedly been splitting his time between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C., so it's conceivable that he hasn't technically hit his cap for service. Surely he's not bringing information back and forth between those roles that influence his work on either side, though... right?

New AI battle: White House vs. Anthropic

Why it matters: AI may be the century's most consequential technology, possibly even determining the geopolitical order, and rules are (or aren't) being written right now. Catch up quick: Jack Clark, Anthropic's cofounder and policy head, on Monday shared a short essay titled "Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear." * It argues that too many people are pretending that AI cannot threaten humanity, and that we need to acknowledge a different reality before figuring out how to "tame it and live together." * White House AI czar David Sacks responded by claiming that "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering." Behind the scenes: The fight is as much about state-level regulations as it is federal ones. * The White House supported a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI laws, proposed as part of the Big Beautiful Bill negotiations, arguing that 50 different rules in 50 different states would sow chaos and slow innovation. * Anthropic called the moratorium "too blunt" and, after it failed to become law, endorsed a major piece of AI legislation in California. Zoom out: Both sides support some sort of federal policy, although Sacks' driving philosophy so far has been to unwind federal safety work and "let them cook." A big question for the White House is if Sacks is being hypocritical when accusing Anthropic of "regulatory capture" -- given that Sacks and others on the White House AI policy team hail from monied tech interests in Silicon Valley. A big question for Anthropic is if it's being hypocritical when it expresses "appropriate fear" while spending (and raising) billions for the sake of AI advancement. The bottom line: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly supported Kamala Harris for president, and has been noticeably absent from White House tech events -- ceding that ground to rivals like OpenAI.

Tensions brewing between Anthropic and Trump's White House

On Tuesday, venture capitalist and White House "AI czar" and advisor David Sacks took a swing at Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, after the latter posted an essay on Substack that pushed back against those downplaying the disruptive possibilities of AI. Sacks lambasted Anthropic and claimed the company was "fear-mongering" about the trajectory of AI development. "Make no mistake: What we are dealing with is a real and mysterious creature, not a simple and predictable machine," Clark wrote in Monday's essay. Sacks fired back a day later at the AI company. "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering," he wrote on X. "It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem." The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Tensions between the White House and Anthropic appear to be brewing over the deployment and regulation of AI. Up until now, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has not attended White House events alongside other tech leaders who have been scrambling to cozy up to the Trump administration. Amodei was notably absent at a dinner that President Donald Trump hosted in early September for CEOs of tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI. Earlier this summer, Amodei urged the White House to abandon its push to limit AI regulation as part of its "One Big Beautiful Bill," calling it "too blunt." The legislation ultimately passed Congress without the provision that would bar states from enacting their own AI guardrails. Anthropic has also reportedly imposed limits on how its AI technology can be used by the federal government. Semafor reported that the company rejected requests from federal law enforcement to deploy its AI for certain purposes, including domestic surveillance. Anthropic's rules explicitly bar clients from using its AI for that purpose.