President Trump said he doesn’t view Anthropic PBC as a national-security threat, days after his administration took steps to cut off foreign access to the tech company’s most advanced artificial intelligence models.
The government’s order poses a challenge to Anthropic’s business and its branding, which focuses heavily on AI safety. The company said it disabled access to its most advanced models for all its customers to comply with the directive.
In a pre-taped interview with Axios posted on Friday, Trump said he thought San Francisco-based Anthropic had “behaved very responsibly” after the Commerce Department ordered the company, led by Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei, to seek US approval before allowing a foreign national to use its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models.
“He responded to us very quickly, because you know it’s tremendous liability,” Trump said, adding that he met with Amodei and other tech executives at the Group of Seven Summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, on Wednesday.
Asked if he thought Anthropic and Amodei are a national security threat, Trump said, “Well, not now. But a week ago, maybe.”
The Commerce Department’s Anthropic directive, issued last week, represents the most significant intervention by the US government to date into an AI venture’s operations.
It poses a new challenge for Anthropic weeks after the company filed confidentially for an initial public offering, with its latest valuation topping $900 billion.
Anthropic’s senior technical staff met with Trump administration officials this week as the company sought to allay the government’s concerns.
The president said he wouldn’t shut down Anthropic, arguing that the US is beating China in the AI race. “I would, but I’m not sure I have to do that. I think so far it’s been very responsible,” he said in the interview.
The dispute over access to Anthropic’s new models marks the latest clash between the administration and the company.
Anthropic has been embroiled for months in a feud with the Pentagon over extra guardrails the company sought for military use of its AI tools. In March, after contract talks broke down, the Defense Department declared the firm a supply-chain risk, and is moving to seek other AI providers for the armed forces.
Anthropic is competing with other major tech companies to advance AI. Anthropic filed to go public and its valuation is nearly $1 trillion, surpassing its rival OpenAI.
–With assistance from Maggie Eastland.
Subramanian writes for Bloomberg.
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