President Trump is hosting Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for a private White House dinner Sunday night, pressing full-speed American AI leadership even as the executive urges a slowdown.

President Donald Trump confirmed he will sit down with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for a private dinner at the White House on Sunday evening, telling Fox Business he wants to keep the United States ahead in artificial intelligence rather than hit the brakes.

The meeting puts the White House face-to-face with one of the industry’s most cautious voices. Amodei has spent recent weeks warning that AI progress is moving too fast. Trump has answered that America should race, win, and protect its lead over China.

Asked about Amodei’s call to slow the improvement of AI models, Trump did not hedge.

Trump told Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie: “We're going to talk about it. I'm for let's go and let's win. We're about a year, maybe a year and a half up on China. There is nobody in third place. It's just us and China. We're leading by quite a bit. I spoke a little bit about it with President Xi. Not too much, it wasn't a topic of conversation. Because I think if you, as they say, open it up to China, you give up the lead. But I'll be speaking to Dario and others.”

"We're going to talk about it. I'm for let's go and let's win. We're about a year, maybe a year and a half up on China. There is nobody in third place. It's just us and China. We're leading by quite a bit. I spoke a little bit about it with President Xi. Not too much, it wasn't a topic of conversation. Because I think if you, as they say, open it up to China, you give up the lead. But I'll be speaking to Dario and others."

That message matches the broader posture of a White House focused on strength, not retreat, including permanent changes at the executive mansion meant to outlast political swings.

Amodei pressed for a slower AI race

Amodei has taken the opposite public line. In an essay this month, the Anthropic chief argued companies should deliberately ease off the throttle on model capabilities.

Amodei wrote: “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”

"We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain."

Last week he carried a similar message to the U.N. Security Council, calling for international standards and cooperation on AI threats. The pitch lands poorly with conservatives who see Beijing as the real clock America has to beat.

Reuters reported Trump confirmed the Sunday night dinner and again dismissed the case for slowing down, saying the United States is roughly a year and a half ahead of China and should not surrender that edge. He also said he does not worry about rogue AI agent incidents and remains confident in the technology.

Inside Anthropic, the safety argument has already cost the firm talent. Former researcher Jacob Coxon stepped down earlier this month and issued a sharp Sept. 8 statement aimed at both Anthropic and OpenAI.

Coxon said: “I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”

"I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."

Pentagon fight still hangs over the dinner

The White House sit-down comes days after a legal win for the Defense Department in its clash with Anthropic. On Friday, an appeals court ruled 2-1 for the Pentagon, allowing the department to keep designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk” for procurement purposes.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth marked the ruling on social media: “Confirmed: @AnthropicAI = Supply Chain Risk. The @DeptofWar does what is right for the Country and our Warriors.”

"Confirmed: @AnthropicAI = Supply Chain Risk. The @DeptofWar does what is right for the Country and our Warriors."

That designation fight has defined much of the recent chill between the administration and the company. The Washington Examiner reported the frosty relationship grew out of Amodei’s refusal to give the Pentagon unfettered access to top models and his public push to slow AI development. Amodei was also described as the only major AI figure left off the guest list for Trump’s White House state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Defense leadership has been under heavy pressure in other corners of the building as well, with high-stakes personnel moves reshaping the Pentagon while the White House drives a harder national-security line.

Thursday’s state dinner for Xi underscored the contrast. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attended. Amodei did not.

The New York Post reported Sunday’s dinner as the first reported one-on-one between Trump and Amodei after months of clashes over military use of Claude models, and said Trump personally invited Amodei after the missed state dinner. The same account noted that as recently as Sept. 14, Trump mockingly called Amodei a “perfect little angel” while slamming his calls for AI guardrails.

Tuesday meeting widens the AI table

Trump is not treating Sunday as a one-off. He told Hasnie a larger session is already on the calendar.

“We have a very big meeting on Tuesday where everybody's coming in and that'll be very important,” Trump said, pointing to a White House gathering with House Speaker Mike Johnson and AI executives.

That lineup puts the pace-of-progress fight in a political room, not just a private dining room. Johnson’s presence ties the industry argument to Congress at a moment when the administration is also weighing other hard power questions, from military use of D.C. landmarks to larger foreign-policy choices.

Trump’s public frame remains simple: America is ahead of China, the gap is real, and slowing down hands the advantage away. He said he raised the subject only lightly with Xi and does not intend to trade away the lead.

For taxpayers and workers watching the AI boom, the stakes are concrete. The companies building these systems want federal access, federal contracts, and federal goodwill. The administration wants American models that strengthen the country, not lecture it. Amodei’s slowdown campaign collides with that demand.

The dinner does not erase the Pentagon designation fight or the appeals court loss Anthropic just took. It does force the company’s safety-first politics into a room with a president who has already said he prefers winning the race.

White House outreach on technology now sits beside other high-pressure files on Trump’s desk, including foreign conflicts under midterm pressure and a governing style that rewards results over elite caution.

Amodei arrives having warned the United Nations, published a slowdown essay, and watched a former researcher quit over what he called a reckless sprint toward superintelligence. Trump arrives having told the country the race is against China, the lead is America’s to keep, and the answer is to go win it.

Voters who want secure borders, honest markets, and a government that puts American strength first will recognize the choice on the table. One side talks about managing fear. The other side talks about keeping the lead.

In Washington, the companies that want power still have to answer to the country that made their rise possible, and a president willing to say the race is worth winning will always have the stronger brief.