One month after President Donald Trump ordered a government-wide halt on artificial intelligence firm Anthropic’s technology following a clash with the Pentagon, the company’s CEO is back at the White House for high-level talks — as officials reconsider whether a system they sidelined over national security and political concerns may be too important to ignore.

A source familiar with the meeting told Fox News White House chief of staff Susie Wiles met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Friday. 

Anthropic’s new artificial intelligence model, Mythos Preview, is considered so advanced that the company has restricted its release, limiting access to a small group of partners over concerns about potential misuse.

The meeting signals a rapid reversal inside the Trump administration, as officials weigh whether a system previously flagged as a national security risk could also be critical to defending U.S. infrastructure — exposing a growing internal tension over how to handle powerful AI tools with both defensive and offensive potential.

«Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei today met with senior administration officials for a productive discussion on how Anthropic and the U.S. government can work together on key shared priorities such as cybersecurity, America’s lead in the AI race, and AI safety. The meeting reflected Anthropic’s ongoing commitment to engaging with the U.S. government on the development of responsible AI. We are grateful for their time and are looking forward to continuing these discussions,» an Anthropic spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

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The talks come despite a recent clash inside the Trump administration, as officials reconsider a company the Pentagon flagged as a supply chain risk. Its ties to former Biden officials and past criticism of Trump by its CEO have added a political dimension to the debate over whether its technology should return to government use.

That potential and the risks that come with it already have triggered tensions inside the U.S. government.

Pentagon clash, legal fight and reversal put Anthropic back in play

The meeting comes after a sharp break between Anthropic and the Pentagon earlier in 2026.  

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the company a national security «supply chain risk,» effectively cutting it out of military systems and barring contractors from using its technology.

Anthropic is now challenging the designation in court, after filing multiple lawsuits against the Pentagon and other federal agencies arguing the «supply chain risk» label is unlawful and retaliatory. 

The designation, which effectively bars contractors from using Anthropic’s technology and has been compared to measures typically reserved for foreign adversaries, already has faced conflicting rulings in federal court, with one judge temporarily blocking parts of the policy while an appeals court declined to halt its enforcement. The legal fight is ongoing, leaving contractors and agencies navigating uncertainty over whether and how Anthropic’s systems can be used.

The move followed a dispute over how the Pentagon could use Anthropic’s AI. 

The company declined to grant open-ended authorization for «all lawful purposes,» instead insisting its systems not be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. While Pentagon officials said they do not rely on AI for either purpose, they rejected being constrained by a private company’s restrictions.

Trump then directed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s models altogether, escalating the standoff beyond the Defense Department into a government-wide halt.

Now, just weeks later, the company is back in high-level talks with the White House as officials weigh whether its new Mythos system — despite the earlier ban — could shift the balance of cyber defense and attack.

Political ties and past criticism may complicate White House talks

The dispute also has taken on a political dimension.

Amodei previously has drawn attention for his criticism of Trump, at one point likening him to a «feudal warlord» in a pre-2024-election Facebook post, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

In an internal message posted on Anthropic’s Slack platform and later leaked to The Information, Amodei suggested the Trump administration’s dispute with the company was driven in part by its refusal to offer what he described as «dictator-style praise.» 

The message, written during a rapid escalation of tensions in early March, later was cited by the Wall Street Journal and other outlets. Amodei subsequently apologized for the tone, saying the post did not reflect his considered views.

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When asked about Anthropic’s governance, hiring and broader political ties, a White House official said the administration «continues to proactively engage across government and industry to protect the United States and Americans,» including «working with frontier AI labs to ensure their models help secure critical software vulnerabilities.»

The official added that «any new technology that would potentially be used or deployed by the federal government requires a technical period of evaluation for fidelity and security,» and said «the collective effort of all involved will ultimately benefit industry, and our country, as a whole.»

Amodei previously has drawn attention for his criticism of Trump, at one point likening him to a «feudal warlord» in a pre-2024-election Facebook post, according to a Wall Street Journal report. (Patrick Sison/AP Photo)

Beyond the immediate dispute, the company’s broader ties to Washington also have drawn attention.

Anthropic’s governance structure has also drawn attention as the administration weighs closer engagement. The company is overseen in part by an independent «Long-Term Benefit Trust,» an unusual mechanism designed to give nonfinancial stakeholders influence over corporate decisions. 

The trust holds special voting shares that allow it to appoint and eventually control a majority of the company’s board, with members drawn from national security, public policy and global development backgrounds.

Current trustees include Clinton Health Access Initiative CEO Neil Buddy Shah, Carnegie Endowment president Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, a Democrat who was appointed to the California Supreme Court by former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2014, and Center for a New American Security CEO Richard Fontaine — who advised John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. The group is a mix of policy and national security leaders that underscores the company’s deep ties to Washington and global policy circles.

Anthropic’s backers also have placed it at the center of overlapping tech, policy and political networks. 

Early funding for the company included investments from figures such as Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, both longtime Democratic donors, and a major early investment from Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX.

At the same time, the company has since attracted a broad range of major institutional investors — including Amazon, Google and Microsoft — reflecting its growing role in the global AI race and complicating efforts to characterize it along purely political lines.

The company also has brought on several officials from the Biden administration into key policy roles, further embedding Anthropic in Washington’s AI policy ecosystem. Among them is Tarun Chhabra, a former National Security Council official who now leads the company’s national security policy work, as well as other advisers and staff with experience shaping federal AI and technology strategy.

Anthropic also has sought to build ties across party lines as it expands its presence in Washington. 

The company employs policy staff with Republican backgrounds, including legislative analyst Benjamin Merkel and lobbyist Mary Croghan, and in February added Chris Liddell — a former deputy White House chief of staff under Trump — to its board. It has contributed $20 million to Public First Action, a bipartisan group that backs candidates from both parties who support AI regulation.

A federal judge’s decision to block the Trump administration from banning AI firm Anthropic from Department of War use is igniting a debate over whether the ruling pushes courts into national security decision-making. (Samyukta Lakshmi/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Eugene Hoshiko/Pool/Reuters)

The company has also faced criticism from within the Trump administration. 

White House AI adviser David Sacks has accused Anthropic of pursuing a «regulatory capture» strategy, arguing the firm is using concerns about AI safety to push rules that could benefit its own position while slowing competitors. 

Anthropic has pushed back on those claims, saying its approach reflects genuine concerns about the risks posed by advanced AI systems.

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New AI system could reshape cyber warfare, raising alarms inside US government

The new technology could help developers identify and fix long-standing security flaws, but it could also give hackers a powerful new tool to target U.S. businesses and government systems.

«Given the rate of AI progress, it will not be long before such capabilities proliferate, potentially beyond actors who are committed to deploying them safely,» Anthropic said in its announcement. «The fallout — for economies, public safety, and national security — could be severe.»

Anthropic has not released Mythos publicly, instead limiting access through a program called Project Glasswing, where a select group of companies use the model to scan critical systems for vulnerabilities.

Pages from the Anthropic website and the company’s logos are displayed on a computer screen in New York on Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026. (Patrick Sison/AP Photo)

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The company says the system has already uncovered thousands of previously unknown flaws — some decades old — underscoring both its defensive value and the risk it could be used to accelerate cyberattacks if the technology spreads.

Fox Business’ Edward Lawrence contributed to this report.

El peligroso manejo del poder

Visiones superficiales

Simpatía. Viktor Orbán y el premier israelí, Benjamín Netanyahu. Foto Reuters

Gold Star father Darin Hoover says a new Pentagon review of the deadly Abbey Gate bombing finally feels different after years of what he described as «crickets» from the Biden administration — but he is still asking whether critical information was deliberately kept from military families and the public.

Hoover, whose son, Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin «Taylor» Hoover, was among the 13 U.S. service members killed in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing during the Afghanistan withdrawal, told Fox News Digital that for years families got little more than a «canned» response.

«For the first three-and-a-half years… we weren’t getting anything from the prior administration. It was crickets,» Hoover said. «The only thing we all got was a canned letter saying how sorry they were. There was not anything individual mentioned about any of the kids.»

Former President Joe Biden checked his watch during the dignified transfer of U.S. service members lost at Abbey Gate, which included 11 Marines, one Army soldier and one Navy sailor.

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His frustration comes as the Pentagon’s Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel says it has completed the substantive phase of interviews with senior military and civilian leaders, and is now preparing findings and recommendations for a final report expected «in the coming months.»

The panel reviewed more than nine million documents, according to chairman Sean Parnell. By contrast, a prior Pentagon review examined roughly 3,000 documents.

Parnell said the earlier review was «significantly narrower in scope» and «over-classified at the highest levels, which effectively kept the most critical and relevant information from public scrutiny.»

That contrast is exactly what has Hoover demanding answers.

«The 3,000 pages… doesn’t even make a ripple,» Hoover said. «Now we’ve got over a million pages being reviewed. Why was everything so top-secret that none of us could see it? They owe us the answers.»

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Gold medals are displayed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda ahead of a ceremony honoring 13 American service members who died in the Abbey Gate suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan on Sept. 10, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Asked directly whether he believes key information was withheld, Hoover did not hesitate.

«Yes, absolutely, information was kept from us,» he said.

«That smells exactly like a cover-up,» he added. «What is it that they saw, or what did they feel needed to be hidden so nobody could know what it was?»

A Pentagon spokesperson referred Fox News Digital to a statement from Parnell when asked for comment.

In that statement, Parnell said the panel was established by War Secretary Pete Hegseth at the direction of President Donald Trump «to conduct the most comprehensive military after action review in modern history.»

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A display shows fallen American military members killed in the Abbey Gate suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan in August 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

He said the panel has interviewed key figures involved in the planning and execution of the withdrawal, including retired Gen. Mark Milley and retired Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., among other senior officials.

«This will be the most thorough, transparent, and honest accounting the American people have received of what happened in August 2021,» Parnell said. «Our purpose is to identify failures in decision-making, so that we may prevent the United States from ever repeating this tragedy.»

Hoover said accountability should mean real consequences for those in command if the new review finds failures.

«If they did something wrong or failed to act, they should no longer be allowed to lead where life and death is at stake,» he said.

«I would love to see pensions taken away… and if possible, I’d love to see people go to jail,» he added.

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The families of American service members who were killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 listen as the fallen are posthumously presented the Congressional Gold Medal, Sept. 10, 2024. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

He also argued the bombing exposed a broader system failure between civilian and military agencies.

«The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing,» Hoover said. «And it all got stalled somewhere in the middle.»

«And our kids did the best they could with the tools they were given,» he added. «They did a phenomenal job.»

Other official reviews have previously documented breakdowns surrounding the withdrawal. A State Department review found failures in crisis planning and preparation for worst-case scenarios, while Milley later described the evacuation timeline as «too slow and too late.»

Hoover said what makes this moment different is President Trump’s engagement with the families and Hegseth’s promise of a broader accounting.

«He spent 45 minutes with us… gave us his full undivided attention,» Hoover said.

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He added that after years of silence, simply being included now matters. Hoover noted that the trial of the ISIS-K-linked figure accused of giving the final approval for the bomber to detonate is set to begin Monday in Alexandria, and some of the Abbey Gate families plan to attend.

«We’re coming up on Memorial Day,» Hoover said. «Please, please, please remember them. Honor them. Don’t forget how we got here, why we got here and live a life worthy of the sacrifices that have been made.»