Trump meets Anthropic CEO months after bitter feud: What changed?

United States (U.S.) President Donald Trump spent much of this year fighting with Anthropic and its CEO Dario Amodei over how far artificial intelligence should be allowed to go.

On Sunday night, the two sat down for dinner at the White House. It was their first private one-on-one meeting and a remarkable change in tone after months of attacks, lawsuits and disagreement over AI safety.

The 80-year-old Republican president described Amodei as “very highly respected,” despite previously mocking the Anthropic boss for wanting to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI.

This comes after months of bitter relations between the two individuals. The fight began when Anthropic refused to remove restrictions that prevent its Claude AI models from being used for fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance.

The Pentagon wanted broader access and Anthropic wouldn't give it.

The Trump administration responded by designating the company a supply-chain risk, effectively shutting Claude out of Defense Department work.

Anthropic challenged the decision in court. A federal judge initially sided with the company and called the Pentagon's action unlawful, but the government has continued fighting the case.

AI safety has created another divide between the two men.

Amodei has become one of Silicon Valley's loudest voices warning that increasingly capable AI systems could create serious risks without stronger safeguards.

Trump takes almost the opposite view.

He argues that slowing American AI companies would give China time to catch up and said again Sunday that he isn't worried by recent incidents involving AI systems behaving in unexpected ways.

Anthropic is one of America's most important AI companies, while the White House is shaping the rules under which it and rivals including OpenAI and Google will operate.

Trump is also due to meet other leading AI executives alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday.

Neither side has disclosed exactly what Trump and Amodei discussed over dinner.