The Trump administration is showing every sign of backing down from its noisy public feud with Anthropic.
Just two months after President Donald Trump announced a government-wide blacklist of tech startups’ AI software, the two sides are looking for a truce due to cybersecurity concerns tied to the company’s powerful new Mythos model, according to six tech lobbyists and policy experts, two of whom are connected to the White House.
The administration has also taken public steps to loosen federal agencies’ restrictions on the use of Anthropic software — following a cordial White House meeting with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Friday and Trump’s comments this week praising company executives as “very smart people.”
Most recently, the Justice Department on Wednesday asked a judge to block the government’s appeal of a ruling that had blocked most of the administration’s efforts to punish Anthropic.
The Defense Department has still not dropped its most aggressive attack on the company — Secretary Pete Hegseth’s March declaration that Anthropic’s ethical policies pose a threat to the national security supply chain. And the two sides are still at odds in two federal lawsuits over the administration’s fines.
But increasingly, the balance of power inside the White House has shifted toward a faction that wants to make peace, Six people who have closely followed the controversy told POLITICO. The three people were still granted anonymity to speak openly about the strained relationship.
A key motivation for eliminating adversaries is to enable government agencies to use Anthropic’s Mythos AI models to find and remediate key cyber vulnerabilities – before an adversary finds them.
“The administration is certainly still fighting (Anthropic in court). I wouldn’t characterize it as being over in that regard,” said Dean Ball, a former White House adviser who served as the administration’s lead author. AI action plan. “But I think clearly there are some people who see the whole thing as a distraction that they don’t need.”
Ball suggested this was especially true of those in the administration “who were mere spectators” when the Defense Department began a dispute with Anthropic in February over the company’s attempt to place ethical limits on the military’s use of its software. Neither Hegseth nor Under Secretary of Defense Emil Michael, who has led much of the department’s criticism of Anthropic, were present at Friday’s meeting. Instead, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wills, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross attended the meeting.
According to two people familiar with Friday’s meeting, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations, the conversation focused on Mythos, not the broader battle between the company and the administration. But both sides later issued optimistic statements.
“There are certainly positive signals coming from (that) meeting from the White House and the President,” said Paul Lekas, head of global public policy and government affairs at the Software Information Industry Association, a group that also includes Anthropic.
Asked about the apparent withdrawal, a White House spokesperson declined to comment on the record Trump made this comment on CNBC on TuesdayIn which the President praised the intelligence of the anthropic officials whom he had previously condemned “Quit unstable jobs.”
“He came to the White House a few days ago and we had a very good conversation with him,” Trump told the network. “And I think they’re shaping up. They’re very smart. … I like high-IQ people, and they certainly have high-IQ people.”
Asked whether the administration would pursue a deal with Anthropic, Trump said: “It’s possible.”
An Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment.
Venture capitalist and White House technology adviser David Sachs said Trump’s CNBC comments were a “good sign” for the company. said later on Tuesday During an interview conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations. Sachs, who now serves as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology merciless reviewer Of anthropic.
Saif Khan, a former adviser on emerging technologies in the Biden administration and a fellow at the Institute for Progress think tank, agreed that people in the Trump administration are “interested in trying to improve the relationship” with Anthropic.
“Listening to what the president said, I think it’s definitely moving in that direction now,” Khan said. “I think they’ll reach a solution.”
Such an agreement would ease months of tension, as Amodei insisted earlier this year that the company would not allow the Pentagon to use its cloud AI models to conduct mass surveillance of Americans or enable autonomous weapons. Trump and Hegseth accused Anthropic of trying to dictate government policy by imposing limits on what Hegseth described as “legitimate uses” of AI.
The battle between Washington and a leading US company has chilled the AI industry and threatens to undermine Trump’s quest for US dominance in the technology, even as it opens up new opportunities for Anthropic’s top corporate rival, OpenAI.
In federal court filings, the administration has also quietly backed off from its most aggressive steps against Anthropic.
After the company sued the administration in March over supply chain risk disclosures, Government lawyers argued This label is “limited”: it only restricts the Pentagon from working with the company, and blocks Defense Department contractors from using Anthropic when working on government contracts.
That assurance was contrary to Hegseth’s previous statement on x That “effective immediately, any contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may not conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.” Hegseth’s post was not a specific or final agency action, government lawyers wrote.
Trump did it separately Announced on Truth Social It said in February that federal agencies should “immediately cease all use of Anthropic’s technology”, although it gave them six months to phase out the software. Despite that alleged ban, offices like the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation are already testing Mythos, and other agencies like the Treasury Department have asked for access.
Mythos has caused widespread concern in the Trump administration, throughout the financial industry, and in Europe, because of its apparently advanced ability to find software flaws, which according to anthropic Presents a serious potential threat to the cyber security of any organization. Employees from at least two large federal agencies have reached out to Anthropic to express interest in integrating cloud mythos in their cyber defense efforts, according to a former senior US technology official with direct knowledge of the discussions.
Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget told government officials in an email shared with POLITICO last week that agencies may soon be allowed to use a “modified” version of Mythos.
Khan of the Institute for Progress said OMB’s guidance may depend on an injunction issued by a federal judge in Northern California last month, which temporarily blocked both the government’s supply chain risk labeling against Anthropic and the president’s directive that agencies stop using its products.
“I think the California decision from a few weeks ago is binding here,” Khan said. “I think you saw right away — not just last week, but even before that — that other agencies were starting to use the anthropic model again.”
But Lekas of the software industry group said the administration needs to take full-scale action if it wants to reassure the tech industry that the Anthropic dispute is an aberration and that the government will never again try to hurt a top AI firm over a contract dispute. He said the administration cannot have it both ways — Anthropic’s designation as a national security risk secretly allowed federal agencies to use Mythos while protecting it on paper.
Another senior tech industry representative agreed that the technology lobby would need more clarity before it would stop pressuring the government on Anthropic.
Ball, a former Trump official, said the administration’s approach to Anthropic has been “absurd.” But while he agrees that the White House is now looking for a way to move forward on Mythos, he’s not sure administration officials will be ready to completely abandon their hostility toward the company.
“We shouldn’t let anyone pretend that there’s no obvious contradiction, using this thing and still saying that it’s equivalent to a product made by a foreign enemy government,” Ball said. “But will they improve the situation by rolling back the policy? It’s very difficult to say.”
John Hewitt Jones contributed to this report.
