Anthropic No Longer A National Security Threat According To Trump

Who knows how long it will last - or how much it cost - but Anthropic appears to be back in the Trump administration's good graces. According to President Trump. 

The White House's export control shut down of  Anthropic's latest and most powerful model was clearly more of a problem for the company than was the previous  'security threat' designation. But it is also possible that it dawned on the administration that by denying themselves access to this AI, they were only hurting their standing with the tech community and, oh by the way, the Pentagon and the country. JL

Cris Tolomia reports in Quartz:

President Donald Trump said he no longer views Anthropic or its chief executive, Dario Amodei, as a national security threat, walking back a position he held as recently as a week before. Talks between Anthropic and the administration advanced when the company's senior technical staff held meetings with government officials to work toward resolving the dispute. A framework for assessing AI jailbreaks is among the outcomes the two sides are pursuing together. Trump said Amodei responded to the administration's export control directive "very quickly" and described the CEO as "nice" and "smart" after the two met at the Group of Seven summit in France.

President Donald Trump said he no longer views Anthropic or its chief executive, Dario Amodei, as a national security threat, walking back a position he held as recently as a week before. 

"Well, not now, but a week ago, maybe," Trump told Axios in a White House interview published late last week. He said Amodei responded to the administration's export control directive "very quickly" and described the CEO as "nice" and "smart" after the two met at the Group of Seven summit in France. "He responded to us very responsibly, I thought," Trump said. 

Trump also declined to rule out invoking emergency powers under the Defense Production Act if Anthropic did not comply with the administration's demands. "I have the power to use a lot of things," he said of the DPA. "But I'm not sure I have to do that." 

The latest dispute between the Claude maker and the Trump administration centers on Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. The Commerce Department issued a directive prohibiting foreign nationals from accessing the models, prompting Anthropic to shut off access entirely for all customers, including its own foreign-born employees. The directive stemmed from concerns about a jailbreak vulnerability flagged in a report from Amazon $AMZN +2.90%, a partial owner of Anthropic.

Trump said a competitor and partial owner brought the concerns to the administration. "It was a competitor and a part owner that turned Anthropic in," he said. "They were very concerned."

Talks between Anthropic and the administration advanced this week when the company's senior technical staff held meetings with government officials to work toward resolving the dispute. A framework for assessing AI jailbreaks is among the outcomes the two sides are pursuing together. Trump said at the G7 summit that talks were proceeding well. 

Keeping Anthropic operational was preferable to shutting it down, Trump suggested, pointing to what he described as U.S. dominance over China in artificial intelligence. "I was with President Xi. We talked about it. We're beating China by a lot," he said. "The good far outweighs the bad."

Anthropic said in a statement that it remains committed to working with the administration. "We are grateful to the administration for their ongoing partnership in working to get this matter resolved as quickly as possible," the company said. "We remain committed to working alongside them towards our shared goals of protecting critical infrastructure and making sure the U.S. leads in AI."

The standoff is one of several points of tension that have built between Anthropic and the federal government. After negotiations over a military contract collapsed, the Pentagon placed Anthropic on a supply-chain risk list — a designation that has historically been reserved for foreign adversaries rather than domestic companies.