Anthropic CEO Defends Company Amidst Regulatory Controversy

Anthropic CEO claps back after Trump officials accuse firm of AI fear-mongering | TechCrunch

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a statement Tuesday to "set the record straight" on the company's alignment with Trump administration AI policy, responding to what he called "a recent uptick in inaccurate claims about Anthropic's policy stances." "Anthropic is built on a simple principle: AI should be a force for human progress, not peril," Amodei wrote. "That means making products that are genuinely useful, speaking honestly about risks and benefits, and working with anyone serious about getting this right." Amodei's response comes after last week's dogpiling on Anthropic from AI leaders and top members of the Trump administration, including AI czar David Sacks and White House senior policy advisor for AI Sriram Krishnan -- all accusing the AI giant of stoking fears to damage the industry. The first hit came from Sacks after Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark shared his hopes and "appropriate fears" about AI, including that AI is a powerful, mysterious, "somewhat unpredictable" creature, not a dependable machine that's easily mastered and put to work. Sacks's response: "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering. It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem." California Senator Scott Wiener, author of AI safety bill SB 53, defended Anthropic, calling out President Trump's "effort to ban states from acting on AI w/o advancing federal protections." Sacks then doubled down, claiming Anthropic was working with Wiener to "impose the Left's vision of AI regulation." Further commentary ensued, with anti-regulation advocates like Groq COO Sunny Madra saying that Anthropic was "causing chaos for the entire industry" by advocating for a modicum of AI safety measures instead of unfettered innovation. In his statement, Amodei said managing the societal impacts of AI should be a matter of "policy over politics," and that he believes everyone wants to ensure America secures its lead in AI development while also building tech that benefits the American people. He defended Anthropic's alignment with the Trump administration in key areas of AI policy and called out examples of times he personally played ball with the president. For example, Amodei pointed to Anthropic's work with the federal government, including the firm's offering of Claude to the federal government and Anthropic's $200 million agreement with the Department of Defense (which Amodei called "the Department of War," echoing Trump's preferred terminology, though the name change requires congressional approval). He also noted that Anthropic publicly praised Trump's AI Action Plan and has been supportive of Trump's efforts to expand energy provision to "win the AI race." Despite these shows of cooperation, Anthropic has caught heat from industry peers from stepping outside the Silicon Valley consensus on certain policy issues. The company first drew ire from Silicon Valley-linked officials when it opposed a proposed 10-year ban on state-level AI regulation, a provision that faced widespread bipartisan pushback. Many in Silicon Valley, including leaders at OpenAI, have claimed that state AI regulation would slow down the industry and hand China the lead. Amodei countered that the real risk is that the U.S. continues to fill China's data centers with powerful AI chips from Nvidia, adding that Anthropic restricts the sale of its AI services to China-controlled companies despite revenue hits. "There are products we will not build and risks we will not take, even if they would make money," Amodei said. Anthropic also fell out of favor with certain power players when it supported California's SB 53, a light-touch safety bill that requires the largest AI developers to make frontier model safety protocols public. Amodei noted that the bill has a carve-out for companies with annual gross revenue below $500 million, which would exempt most startups from any undue burdens. "Some have suggested that we are somehow interested in harming the startup ecosystem," Amodei wrote, referring to Sacks's post. "Startups are among our most important customers. We work with tens of thousands of startups and partner with hundreds of accelerators and VCs. Claude is powering an entirely new generation of AI-native companies. Damaging that ecosystem makes no sense for us." In his statement, Amodei said it has grown from a $1 billion to $7 billion run-rate over the last nine months while managing to deploy "AI thoughtfully and responsibly." "Anthropic is committed to constructive engagement on matters of public policy. When we agree, we say so. When we don't, we propose an alternative for consideration," Amodei wrote. "We are going to keep being honest and straightforward, and will stand up for the policies we believe are right. The stakes of this technology are too great for us to do otherwise."

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."

Anthropic CEO disputes Trump AI czar David Sacks' claims that company is 'woke'

Amodei said the company is aligned with the Trump administration across "key areas of AI policy," and that it is interested in working with "anyone serious about getting this right." "I fully believe that Anthropic, the administration, and leaders across the political spectrum want the same thing: to ensure that powerful AI technology benefits the American people and that America advances and secures its lead in AI development," Amodei said in a statement. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI executives, including Amodei, who left the company over concerns about safety. It's one of the companies at the center of the AI boom, and its valuation has swelled to $183 billion in just four years. The startup caught the attention of Sacks last week after Jack Clark, one of Anthropic's co-founders and its current head of policy, published an essay called "Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear," which sparked a debate online over regulation.

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?

OpenAI investor Reid Hoffman spars with AI czar Sacks, calls Anthropic 'one of the good guys'

Reid Hoffman, Partner at Greylock and co-founder LinkedIn, speaks during the WSJ Tech Live conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal at the Montage Laguna Beach in Laguna Beach, California, on October 21, 2024. Two of the main members of the PayPal mafia are sparring again -- this time over artificial intelligence. Billionaire tech investor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman on Monday called Anthropic "one of the good guys" after the AI startup was criticized last week by David Sacks, the venture capitalist serving as President Donald Trump's AI and crypto czar. "Anthropic, along with some others (incl Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI) are trying to deploy AI the right way, thoughtfully, safely, and enormously beneficial for society," Hoffman wrote on X. "That's why I am intensely rooting for their success." Hoffman has served on Microsoft's board since 2017, shortly after selling LinkedIn to the software giant. Microsoft is a key OpenAI investor and partner. Hoffman was also an early investor in OpenAI, Anthropic's larger rival, and remains a shareholder. He revealed on Monday that Greylock, where he's a partner, has invested in Anthropic. Greylock and Anthropic didn't respond to requests for comment. In a series of posts, Hoffman said he tries to avoid commenting directly about companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, but that "in all industries, especially in AI, it's important to back the good guys."

Anthropic Promises Trump Admin Its AI Is Not Woke

After condemnation from Trump's AI czar, Anthropic's CEO promised its AI is not woke. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has published a lengthy statement on the company's site in which he promises Anthropic's AI models are not politically biased, that it remains committed to American leadership in the AI industry, and that it supports the AI startup space in particular. Amodei doesn't explicitly say why he feels the need to state all of these obvious positions for the CEO of an American AI company to have, but the reason is that the Trump administration's so-called "AI Czar" has publicly accused Anthropic of producing "woke AI" that it's trying to force on the population via regulatory capture. The current round of beef began earlier this month when Anthropic's co-founder and head of policy Jack Clark published a written version of a talk he gave at The Curve AI conference in Berkeley. The piece, published on Clark's personal blog, is full of tortured analogies and self-serving sci-fi speculation about the future of AI, but essentially boils down to Clark saying he thinks artificial general intelligence is possible, extremely powerful, potentially dangerous, and scary to the general population. In order to prevent disaster, put the appropriate policies in place, and make people embrace AI positively, he said, AI companies should be transparent about what they are building and listen to people's concerns. "What we are dealing with is a real and mysterious creature, not a simple and predictable machine," he wrote. "And like all the best fairytales, the creature is of our own creation. Only by acknowledging it as being real and by mastering our own fears do we even have a chance to understand it, make peace with it, and figure out a way to tame it and live together." Venture capitalist, podcaster, and the White House's "AI and Crypto Czar" David Sacks was not a fan of Clark's blog. "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering," Sacks said on X in response to Clark's blog. "It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem." Things escalated yesterday when Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn's co-founder and a megadonor to the Democratic party, supported Anthropic in a thread on X, saying "Anthropic was one of the good guys" because it's one of the companies "trying to deploy AI the right way, thoughtfully, safely, and enormously beneficial for society." Hoffman also appeared to take a jab at Elon Musk's xAI, saying "Some other labs are making decisions that clearly disregard safety and societal impact (e.g. bots that sometimes go full-fascist) and that's a choice. So is choosing not to support them." Sacks responded to Hoffman on X, saying "The leading funder of lawfare and dirty tricks against President Trump wants you to know that 'Anthropic is one of the good guys.' Thanks for clarifying that. All we needed to know." Musk hopped into the replies saying: "Indeed." "The real issue is not research but rather Anthropic's agenda to backdoor Woke AI and other AI regulations through Blue states like California," Sacks said. Here, Sacks is referring to Anthropic's opposition to Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, which wanted to stop states from regulating AI in any way for 10 years, and its backing of California's SB 53, which requires AI companies that generate more than $500 million in annual revenue to make their safety protocols public. All this sniping leads us to Amodei's statement today, which doesn't mention the beef above but is clearly designed to calm investors who are watching Trump's AI guy publicly saying one of the biggest AI companies in the world sucks. "I fully believe that Anthropic, the administration, and leaders across the political spectrum want the same thing: to ensure that powerful AI technology benefits the American people and that America advances and secures its lead in AI development," Amodei said. "Despite our track record of communicating frequently and transparently about our positions, there has been a recent uptick in inaccurate claims about Anthropic's policy stances. Some are significant enough that they warrant setting the record straight." Amodei then goes to count the ways in which Anthropic already works with the federal government and directly grovels to Trump. "Anthropic publicly praised President Trump's AI Action Plan. We have been supportive of the President's efforts to expand energy provision in the US in order to win the AI race, and I personally attended an AI and energy summit in Pennsylvania with President Trump, where he and I had a good conversation about US leadership in AI," he said. "Anthropic's Chief Product Officer attended a White House event where we joined a pledge to accelerate healthcare applications of AI, and our Head of External Affairs attended the White House's AI Education Taskforce event to support their efforts to advance AI fluency for teachers." The more substantive part of his argument is that Anthropic didn't support SB 53 until it made an exemption for all but the biggest AI labs, and that several studies found that Anthropic's AI models are not "uniquely politically biased," (read: not woke). "Again, we believe we share those goals with the Trump administration, both sides of Congress, and the public," Amodei wrote. "We are going to keep being honest and straightforward, and will stand up for the policies we believe are right. The stakes of this technology are too great for us to do otherwise." Many of the AI industry's most vocal critics would agree with Sacks that Clark's blog and "fear-mongering" about AI is self-serving because it makes their companies seem more valuable and powerful. Some critics will also agree that AI companies take advantage of that perspective to then influence AI regulation in a way that benefits them as incumbents. It would be a far more compelling argument if it didn't come from Sacks and Musk, who found a much better way to influence AI regulation to benefit their companies and investments: working for the president directly and publicly bullying their competitors.

Anthropic tries to defuse White House backlash

Why it matters: AI companies have a lot to lose if they're not in the good graces of the Trump administration, from lucrative government contracts to influence over the policies that could define their future. Driving the news: In a blog post on Tuesday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei laid out the company's alignment on AI policy with the administration, including: * Contracts with the federal government * The company's public backing of President Trump's AI action plan * Hiring senior former Trump officials * A shared preference for a national AI standard Amodei quoted Vice President JD Vance in his statement. * "In his recent remarks, the Vice President also said of AI, 'Is it good or is it bad, or is it going to help us or going to hurt us? The answer is probably both, and we should be trying to maximize as much of the good and minimize as much of the bad.'" * "That perfectly captures our view," Amodei wrote. "We're ready to work in good faith with anyone of any political stripe to make that vision a reality." Catch up quick: Sacks last week said on X that "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering." * A couple of days later, Sacks responded to a Bloomberg column that the administration is targeting Anthropic because of its AI principles, saying that "in fact, it has been Anthropic's government affairs and media strategy to position itself consistently as a foe of the Trump administration." Friction point: Anthropic is at odds with Sacks on the question of preempting state-level regulation and the effort on Capitol Hill to impose a 10-year moratorium that failed during the reconciliation process. * The company says it prefers a federal standard, but can't wait for Congress to act and supports California's efforts. * "Our longstanding position has been that a uniform federal approach is preferable to a patchwork of state laws. I proposed such a standard months ago and we're ready to work with both parties to make it happen," Amodei wrote. The bottom line: Anthropic is staying true to the positions it has held all along, and this blog post is no different.

Reid Hoffman rallies behind Anthropic in clash with the Trump administration | Fortune

A week after Anthropic found itself attacked by the Trump administration, the company has found a defender in Reid Hoffman. CEO Dario Amodei also published a lengthy statement rebutting "inaccurate claims" about the company's policy positions, which used Vice President JD Vance's words against the White House's chief AI advisor. Hoffman, a partner at VC firm Greylock, which he said has invested in Anthropic, praised the AI lab as "one of the good guys" in an attempt to push back against attacks by White House AI czar David Sacks. Sacks, who is President Donald Trump's AI and crypto czar, accused Anthropic of using "a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering" to advance regulation, an approach he says is stifling innovation and startups. "Anthropic, along with some others (incl Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI) are trying to deploy AI the right way, thoughtfully, safely, and enormously beneficial for society," Hoffman wrote in a post on X. "Some other labs are making decisions that clearly disregard safety and societal impact (e.g. bots that sometimes go full-fascist) and that's a choice." Sacks fired back, calling Hoffman "the leading funder of lawfare and dirty tricks against President Trump." Fellow PayPal mafia member Elon Musk, who runs xAI, an AI lab not listed in Hoffman's post, also chimed in with a one-word endorsement of Sacks. Hoffman responded, writing: "Shows you didn't read the post (not shocked). When you are ready to have a professional conversation about AI's impact on America, I'm here to chat." Following that, Amodei today published a statement clearly intended to reference Sacks: "There has been a recent uptick in inaccurate claims about Anthropic's policy stances. Some are significant enough that they warrant setting the record straight." He also tried to place himself on the side of Vance. "I strongly agree with Vice President JD Vance's recent comments on AI -- particularly his point that we need to maximize applications that help people, like breakthroughs in medicine and disease prevention, while minimizing the harmful ones. This position is both wise and what the public overwhelmingly wants." Over the last year, Anthropic has positioned itself as an advocate of AI safety and regulation. The company has supported state-level regulation, repeatedly opposing a Trump administration-proposed federal preemption bill that attempted to block state-level AI regulation for a decade. Anthropic was also the only major AI lab to back California's SB 53, a recently passed bill that regulated AI companies in their home state, requiring more transparency from leading AI labs. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has also publicly criticized the Trump administration's leadership in the past, likening Trump to a "feudal warlord." More recently, Amodei also criticized the Trump administration's handling of advanced AI chip export restrictions, urging stricter export controls to China in order to protect U.S. national security. Despite the repeated public jabs at Anthropic from Sacks, the AI czar has pushed back on claims that he's actively targeting the company. He publicly disputed a Bloomberg report suggesting his criticism fueled federal scrutiny of the AI lab. In a post on X, he wrote: "Nothing could be further from the truth," noting that the White House recently approved Anthropic's Claude app for government use. Instead, Sacks argued that the AI company had deliberately portrayed itself "as a foe of the Trump administration." In his official position as AI czar, Sacks has argued that AI regulation, especially at the state level, risks creating a "patchwork" system that would stifle U.S. innovation and put the country at risk of losing a global AI arms race. His stance aligns with a broader push among pro-Trump tech leaders to prioritize speed and competitiveness over regulation. "The U.S. is currently in an AI race, and our chief global competition is China," Sacks said in an onstage interview at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco this week. "They're the only other country that has the talent, the resources, and the technology expertise to basically beat us in AI." The spat between the White House and Anthropic has sparked a wider divide in Silicon Valley. Sriram Krishnan, a Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and one of the authors of the American "AI Action Plan," also weighed in last week. Sharing one of Sacks' posts on X, Krishnan argued that the EA (Effective Altruism) and AI safety lobby had been traditionally allied with the left and were angry over a lost influence and credibility. Krishnan called out members of an "AI safety industrial complex" and accused safety groups of trying to "sneak in AI laws for the entire country using their influence in one state [California]," warning that overregulation could cede the field to China and stifle innovation. Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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.

As Anthropic tries to keep pace with OpenAI, it's also taking on the U.S. government

Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anthropic, at the World Economic Forum in 2025. Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is doing all it can to keep pace with larger rival OpenAI, which is spending money at a historic pace with backing from Microsoft and Nvidia. Of late, Anthropic has been facing an equally daunting antagonist: the U.S. government. David Sacks, the venture capitalist serving as President Donald Trump's AI and crypto czar, has been publicly criticizing Anthropic for what he's called a campaign by the company to support "the Left's vision of AI regulation." After Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, AI startup's head of policy, wrote an essay this week titled "Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear," Sacks lashed out against the company on X. "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering," Sacks wrote on Tuesday. OpenAI, meanwhile, has established itself as a partner to the White House since the very beginning of the second Trump administration. On Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, Trump announced a joint venture called Stargate with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to invest billions of dollars in U.S. AI infrastructure. Sacks' criticism of Anthropic hits on the company's very foundation and its original reason for being. Siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei left OpenAI in late 2020 and started Anthropic with a mission to build safer AI. OpenAI had started as a nonprofit lab in 2015, but was rapidly moving towards commercialization, with hefty funding from Microsoft. Now they're the two most highly valued private AI companies in the country, with OpenAI commanding a $500 billion valuation and Anthropic capturing a valuation of $183 billion. OpenAI leads the consumer AI market with its ChatGPT and Sora apps, while Anthropic's Claude models are particularly popular in the enterprise. When it comes to regulation, the companies have very different views. OpenAI has lobbied for fewer guardrails, while Anthropic has opposed part of the Trump administration's effort to limit protections. Anthropic has repeatedly pushed back against efforts by the federal government to preempt state-level regulation of AI, most notably a Trump-backed provision that would have blocked such rules for 10 years. That proposal, part of the draft "Big Beautiful Bill," was ultimately abandoned. Anthropic later endorsed California's SB 53, which would require transparency and safety disclosures from AI companies, effectively going in the opposite direction from the administration's approach. "SB 53's transparency requirements will have an important impact on frontier AI safety," Anthropic wrote in a blog post on Sept. 8. "Without it, labs with increasingly powerful models could face growing incentives to dial back their own safety and disclosure programs in order to compete." Anthropic didn't provide a comment for this story. Sacks didn't respond to a request for comment.

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.

Anthropic's relationship with the U.S. government is getting complicated

His comments come after David Sacks, a prominent tech venture capitalist currently serving as the Trump administration's AI czar, accused Anthropic of having an "agenda to backdoor Woke AI" through state-level regulation and working with Democratic mega-donors. That narrative has since gained traction within online right-wing spaces. The comments also follow the White House's release of an executive order specifically focused on combating "woke AI" earlier this year, though officials have yet to say how it will be enforced. Now Anthropic is defending its work on AI safety, which Amodei argued should prioritize "policy over politics." He also doubled down on the company's position on regulating AI on the state level, in absence of a national standard. Citing JD Vance's comments on AI directly, Amodei pointed to several areas of agreement with the Trump administration, including to "maximize applications that help people, like breakthroughs in medicine and disease prevention, while minimizing the harmful ones."

Anthropic CEO insists he's no wokester in wake of White House AI...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is pushing back on claims that his artificial intelligence company is too "woke" following a wave of criticism from the White House's AI czar David Sacks. Amodei, who has rankled Sacks and other critics with his frequent warnings of potential AI doom, insisted Tuesday that Anthropic is aligned with the Trump administration on "key areas of AI policy." He also blasted what he called "a recent uptick in inaccurate claims" about the company's policy stances. "I fully believe that Anthropic, the administration, and leaders across the political spectrum want the same thing: to ensure that powerful AI technology benefits the American people and that America advances and secures its lead in AI development," Amodei said in a statement. As The Post has reported, Anthropic has faced mounting scrutiny in recent weeks over concerns the company has a liberal bias. The firm's investors include the Ford Foundation, a left-wing group recently blasted by Vice President JD Vance for being part of what he called an "NGO network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence" following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The San Francisco-based firm, known for its Claude chatbot, has also reportedly irked the Trump administration by barring federal contractors from using its tools for some law enforcement purposes. Amodei himself is a prominent Democratic donor who has been publicly critical of President Trump and supported Kamala Harris for president in 2024. Sacks has been among Anthropic's most vocal critics - alleging in a recent X post that the firm's frequent warnings about the need for AI safeguards were just a bid to shape the industry for its own benefit. "Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering. It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem," Sacks wrote on Oct. 14. Sacks' comment drew a response from billionaire Democrat mega-donor Reid Hoffman, who has invested in Anthropic through his fund Greylock. Hoffman defended the AI company, calling the firm "one of the good guys." In response, Sacks took aim at Hoffman. "The leading funder of lawfare and dirty tricks against President Trump wants you to know that 'Anthropic is one of the good guys,'" Sacks wrote. "Thanks for clarifying that. All we needed to know." Sacks went on to allege that to Anthropic wanted to "backdoor Woke AI and other AI regulations through Blue states like California." Amodei pushed back in his statement, noting that Anthropic has "publicly praised President Trump's AI Action Plan" and recently secured a $200 million contract with the Department of War. "Our longstanding position has been that a uniform federal approach is preferable to a patchwork of state laws," Amodei said.