Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is set to enter the West Wing on Friday for a meeting with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, in what could mark a turning point in the company’s dispute with the Pentagon over its advanced AI systems, Axios reported.
The Trump administration is weighing the significance of Anthropic’s Claude model, Mythos, a new frontier AI model focused on cybersecurity.
Mythos is seen as highly advanced and potentially capable of breaching cybersecurity defenses. The AI system, unveiled earlier this month, can scan software, detect serious security flaws, and even figure out how those flaws could be exploited, often with minimal human input.
The latest development comes as Anthropic continues its lawsuit against the Pentagon after being blacklisted for refusing to allow unrestricted use of its AI.
Anthropic had drawn two firm lines. Its models would not be used for mass domestic surveillance. And they would not power fully autonomous weapons systems. These have been core to the company’s identity since its founding in 2021, when a group of researchers left OpenAI specifically because they believed AI development needed stronger ethical boundaries.
After the Pentagon blacklisted Anthropic, the company filed suit. A federal appeals court rejected its initial bid to block the blacklist, but the legal battle continues.
Meanwhile, Anthropic pivoted to a parallel political strategy, hiring Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm with deep ties to Trump’s inner circle.
Despite the legal standoff, multiple US agencies including elements of the intelligence community and CISA are already testing Mythos, with additional interest from Treasury.
The new model demonstrates the ability to identify zero-day vulnerabilities across major operating systems and browsers. The Treasury Secretary reportedly called Mythos a “step function change in abilities” at a Wall Street Journal event, triggering an emergency meeting with Wall Street CEOs and a briefing that included Vice President Vance and Elon Musk on AI-related cyber risks.
Friday’s meeting is Amodei’s second high-stakes encounter with a senior Trump administration official this year.
