White House, Anthropic Have "Productive Meeting" After Mythos Preview Released
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on Friday, according to Axios. The meeting came a week after the company unveiled a preview of Claude Mythos, an AI system it says can outperform humans in certain hacking and cybersecurity tasks.
The White House said it held a “productive and constructive” meeting with the head of artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, despite an ongoing legal battle between the company and the US Department of Defense.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on Friday, according to Axios. The meeting came a week after the company unveiled a preview of Claude Mythos, an AI system it says can outperform humans in certain hacking and cybersecurity tasks.
Claude Mythos has been described by researchers as highly capable in identifying vulnerabilities in legacy code and autonomously exploiting them. Access to the tool remains limited to a small number of companies.
The White House said the meeting focused on potential cooperation and the challenges posed by rapidly advancing AI capabilities. Officials discussed “opportunities for collaboration” and ways to balance innovation with safety concerns.
The engagement marks a shift in tone from earlier criticism by the Trump administration, which had previously labeled Anthropic a “radical left, woke company.” President Donald Trump had also ordered government agencies to stop using the firm’s technology, calling its leadership “left wing nut jobs.”
In March, Anthropic filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department and other federal agencies after being designated a “supply chain risk,” a classification that restricts government use of its technology. The company argued the designation was retaliatory, stemming from its refusal to grant the Pentagon unrestricted access to its AI tools over concerns about surveillance and autonomous weapons.
A federal court in California largely sided with Anthropic’s argument, but an appeals court declined to block the designation while the case proceeds.
Despite the dispute, court records indicate Anthropic’s tools remain in use across several government agencies. The recent meeting suggests the administration may be weighing the strategic importance of the company’s technology even as legal and political tensions continue.