U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Anthropic Inc. was "turning around" in the eyes of his administration, opening the door for the artificial intelligence company to reverse its blacklisting by the Pentagon. Trump directed the administration to halt cooperation with Anthropic in February. The Pentagon later declared the company a supply chain risk, dealing a major blow to the AI lab following a showdown over guidelines for how the military can use its AI tools.
The company disputed that characterization and filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense in March over the designation.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodai met with White House officials last week to try to repair relations. The White House called the meeting productive and constructive.
"They came to the White House a few days ago and we had some good talks with them," Trump said on Tuesday. "I think they're on the mend. They're very smart and I think they're going to be useful. I like smart people. I think we're going to get along very well with them."
Asked whether a deal with the Pentagon was imminent, Trump said: "It's possible. We want the smartest people."
Anthropic, when asked for comment, pointed to its Friday statement, which said the White House meeting was productive and focused on how the two sides can "collaborate on key shared priorities such as cybersecurity, U.S. leadership in the race for artificial intelligence, and AI safety."
The apparent thaw in relations comes weeks after Anthropic launched its most advanced artificial intelligence tool, Mythos, which may have unprecedented capabilities to identify cybersecurity vulnerabilities and devise ways to exploit them, experts say.
Anthropic said the preview version of Claude Mythos will not be fully rolled out. Instead, the company announced Project Glasswing, inviting big tech companies, cybersecurity vendors, U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase and dozens of others to privately evaluate the model and prepare defenses accordingly.
Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark said last week that the company was in discussions with the Trump administration about its cutting-edge artificial intelligence model, Mythos, but did not provide details.