Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sat down Friday with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in a closed-door meeting that signals a potential shift in the Trump administration's hostile posture toward the AI company.
The gathering marks an unusual moment of diplomatic engagement after months of legal warfare. The Pentagon had branded Anthropic a "supply chain risk" and Trump ordered all federal agencies to stop using the company's tools. Now the administration's top financial official is personally involved in exploring what a working relationship might look like.
"This is a big problem. Everyone's complaining. There's all this drama. So this got elevated to Susie to hear Dario out, determine what is bullsh-t and start to plot a way forward," one Trump adviser said of how the meeting came about.
What exactly triggered the turnaround remains murky. Both sides emerged describing the encounter as "productive," with Anthropic highlighting shared interests in cybersecurity, AI dominance, and safety protocols. The White House echoed that language, noting the discussion covered "opportunities for collaboration" and balancing innovation with safeguards.
Bessent's involvement cuts to the heart of a genuine policy dilemma. Anthropic's latest model, called Mythos Preview, has powerful cybersecurity capabilities that could either fortify American defenses or, in the wrong hands, devastate them. The Treasury and other government agencies want access to that tool. Sources said a deal could materialize soon.
"He wants to make sure everyone is on the same page," a person familiar with Bessent's thinking explained. "He understands this is a private company, but there is a role for government to play here."
That nuance reflects the core tension. Anthropic's founder Dario Amodei refused to grant the Pentagon blanket access to the company's software, insisting on strict limits against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons development. Those ethical lines triggered Pentagon fury and led to the supply chain designation. Yet the same company now has tools the government desperately wants to study and potentially use.
Inside the administration, views remain sharply divided. Some officials view Anthropic's overtures as a cunning power play. "They're using this Mythos cyber weapon to find friendly ears in the government. They're succeeding," one U.S. official griped.
But another official painted a starkly different picture of bureaucratic sentiment, saying "every agency except [the Department of] War wants to" work with Anthropic. That suggests the Pentagon's position has become increasingly isolated even within Trump's own government.
The legal battle continues, and no breakthrough has been announced. Amodei entered the meeting cautiously optimistic, according to one source. Whether Friday's gathering actually produces a path forward remains to be seen, but the fact that it happened at all represents a significant thaw in what had been an icy confrontation.
Author James Rodriguez: "The Pentagon picked a fight it may not be able to win, and now the adults in the room are quietly figuring out how to live with a company they're supposed to be at war with."
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