Trump Dines With Anthropic CEO, Says Slowing AI Would Hand the Race to China

President Trump confirmed he hosted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for a private White House dinner Sunday night, their first one-on-one meeting after months of public friction over AI safety, military use, and regulation. Trump told reporters after landing at Joint Base Andrews that Amodei is “highly respected” and that the dinner was set for 10 p.m. Axios first reported the invitation. The White House has not issued a detailed readout. A broader session with top AI executives and House Speaker Mike Johnson is scheduled Tuesday. Amodei was not at last week’s state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping, which included OpenAI’s Sam Altman, xAI’s Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. Trump invited him afterward, according to people familiar with the planning.

Earlier Sunday at the Presidents Cup in Illinois, Trump again rejected slowing frontier AI development. “We’re about maybe a year and a half up on China,” he told Fox News. “We’re leading, and we’re building tremendous, trillions of dollars’ worth of places. And why should we give that up?” He said new regulations would open the door for Beijing to catch up. He acknowledged Amodei’s argument that moving too fast can raise risks, then said keeping the U.S. lead matters more. Asked about reports of rogue AI agents, he said, “I don’t worry about it.” On Truth Social earlier this month he wrote that the only “guardrails” AI needs is “a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT,” called extinction warnings a hoax, and accused Amodei of “pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel.’” At the United Nations he opposed what he called a “globalist scheme” to control AI. His line has been: “Whoever wins AI, WINS.”

Amodei this month published an essay arguing the industry should pace the most powerful models so safety work can keep up, including government-embedded evaluators and talks that would require cooperation with China. Altman and Musk endorsed a slowdown in general terms. China rejected the proposal. Anthropic and the administration have been at odds since the company refused Pentagon contract language covering fully autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance. The Defense Department labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” limiting military use of its Claude models. A federal appeals court last week upheld that designation. Anthropic has also reported that foreign actors, including some tied to China, Russia, and Iran, used Claude in cyber, influence, and fraud operations. A White House official said Trump’s position remains that America will lead in “Super Intelligence” while protecting consumers. No joint statement from the dinner has been released.