Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei will join President Donald Trump for a private dinner at the White House on Sunday, CNBC confirmed, in what will be the first one-on-one meeting between the two leaders.
Amodei was noticeably absent from Trump's glitzy state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, as other tech bigwigs — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — were photographed rubbing elbows with government officials. Amodei had a scheduling conflict, so Trump invited him to a private dinner, according to a source familiar with the details who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The meeting, first reported by Axios, comes at a high-stakes moment for Anthropic, which is gearing up for what's widely expected to be a blockbuster IPO. The company's precarious relationship with the Trump administration has been under strain for much of the last year, so Amodei's sit-down with the president could serve as a valuable opportunity to ease tensions.
"President Trump has been clear: America will lead the world in Super Intelligence, while protecting American consumers," a White House official said in a statement, in response to CNBC's inquiry about Sunday's dinner. "We will drive innovation, strengthen American competitiveness, and ensure this transformative technology works for the American people."
Amodei drew Trump's ire earlier this month by publicly urging the AI industry to slow down the pace of advanced model development and better address potential risks. He published a three-step proposal and called for additional government oversight, which angered the president even as it gained the support of other industry leaders like Altman and Musk.
"The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "The Trump Administration has stopped AI 'people' from doing bad, or potentially bad, 'things,' like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a 'perfect little angel' - and we will continue to do so!"
Amodei was already in a difficult spot with the president, because he supported Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and was a vocal critic of Trump.
But before Amodei's call for a slowdown rocked the tech sector, Anthropic's relationship with the Trump administration appeared to be on the mend.
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."
WATCH: Pres. Trump and Pres. Xi share a toast at state dinner surrounded by U.S. executives
