Trump to have dinner with Anthropic CEO Amodei at the White House

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who temporarily imposed export controls on two of the company’s most advanced models in June, told Axios earlier this month that Anthropic is “back on the right side.” He also hosted a fireside chat with Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in North Carolina.

Brown, who serves as Anthropic’s chief compute officer, has taken on a much more active role in interfacing with the Trump administration in recent months. He reportedly led the company’s negotiations with the Commerce Department over its export control directive, replacing Amodei in that role.

“We trust Anthropic,” Lutnick said on the sidelines of the event.

That same day, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Michael Kratsios told CNBC that the administration was “in a good cadence” with Anthropic. He said the company was “open” and actively sharing models with the government as part of Trump’s voluntary AI executive order.

Anthropic has had less success winning over officials at the Department of Defense, however.

Negotiations between the company and the Pentagon spiraled in February after the two sides failed to agree on how the military could use its models. The DOD wanted Anthropic to grant the military unfettered access to its models across all lawful purposes, while Anthropic wanted assurance that its technology would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance. 

After talks collapsed, the DOD labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk, an unprecedented move that meant the company purportedly threatened U.S. national security. The designation prevents the U.S. military from using Anthropic’s models and blocks defense contractors from using them in their work with the agency.

Anthropic sued the Trump administration in an effort to reverse it’s blacklisting, but the company suffered a blow on Friday after a federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C., upheld the Pentagon’s action. The company could still petition for a rehearing, and could also ask the Supreme Court to take the case.

Emil Michael, the DOD’s technology chief, celebrated the ruling in a post on X.

“The hammer of justice has smashed @AnthropicAI arguments,” Michael wrote on Friday. “They are a Supply Chain Risk to the defense industrial base serving the @DeptofWar. Warfighters will sleep better knowing that no private company will insert their opinions in the chain of command. @SecWar was right!”

Defense Secretary Hegseth accused Anthropic of “duplicity” and argued that the company attempted “to strong-arm the United States military into submission” when negotiations collapsed in February. He reaffirmed that position in a post on X on Friday.

“Confirmed: @AnthropicAI = Supply Chain Risk,” Hegseth wrote. The @DeptofWar does what is right for the Country and our Warriors.”

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Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/27/trump-dinner-anthropic-ceo-amodei.html