Trump holds a private dinner with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei amid tension over AI regulation

Last Sunday night, US President Donald Trump had a private dinner with Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude. Trump himself confirmed the meeting, although the White House has not released details of what was discussed over dinner.

The meeting comes at a time when Amodei has long been publicly warning about the 'exponential growth' of artificial intelligence and calling for safeguards for the sector. Trump, for his part, has been reluctant to impose regulation, arguing that in the technology race between the United States and China, 'whoever wins the AI game, wins', full stop.

Ahead of the dinner, Trump said that he and Amodei were going to 'talk' about AI regulation, and made his position clear: 'I'm in favour of saying let's go and let's win', he declared. 'We're a year ahead of China, maybe a year and a half. There's nobody in third place. I mean, it's just us and China', he added, insisting on the geopolitical argument that has guided his approach to the industry.

News of the dinner was first revealed by Axios. It comes just days after Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to establish an AI security channel between the two countries to manage any problems that may arise. In addition, a meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at the White House between Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and several artificial intelligence executives; according to a source with direct knowledge of Amodei's schedule, he will also attend that lunch.

The relationship between Anthropic and the Trump administration has been rocky so far. Earlier this year, the Pentagon declared the company a 'supply chain risk' after Anthropic said its technology should not be used for mass surveillance of US citizens or for the development of fully autonomous weapons. A judge upheld that designation just a few weeks ago.

That backdrop explains why the dinner is striking: while most major tech executives have openly courted Trump, Amodei had until now remained an exception. The president himself once called Anthropic's leadership 'leftwing nut jobs'. Amodei acknowledged this month in an interview with CBS News that 'I don't think I fully appreciated what it would really mean when progress [in AI] was as fast as it has been'.

The article provides no further details on the content of the private conversation or on any agreements or shifts in position stemming from it; according to the source, it was a closed-door dinner whose concrete outcome —whether it marks a genuine rapprochement between the company and the White House or merely a one-off gesture— remains to be seen in the coming days, especially in light of the AI executives' meeting scheduled for Tuesday at the White House.