Donald Trump’s AI czar David Sacks calls Anthropic ‘Woke’, CEO Dario Amodei responds
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has responded to what he called “inaccurate claims” about the company’s policy stance. His remarks follow repeated criticism from venture capitalist David Sacks, who serves as US President Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar. He has previously labelled the Google and Amazon-backed artificial intelligence startup as “Woke.” This week, Amodei issued a statement, asserting that the company is aligned with the Trump administration across “key areas of AI policy” and is interested in working with “anyone serious about getting this right.”In a statement to CNBC, Amodei said: “I fully believe that Anthropic, the administration, and leaders across the political spectrum want the same thing: to ensure that powerful AI technology benefits the American people and that America advances and secures its lead in AI development.”
What Donald Trump’s AI czar David Sacks said about Anthropic
Last week, the AI company drew Sacks’ attention after Jack Clark, one of Anthropic’s co-founders and its current head of policy, published an essay titled “Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear,” which sparked an online debate over AI regulation.Sacks took to the social media site X (formerly Twitter) to criticise the essay and accused Anthropic of “running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering.” He said the company is “principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”Earlier, Anthropic opposed an amendment to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that sought to suspend state-level AI regulations for 10 years. However, the proposal did not make it into the final legislation.The company also backed a California bill requiring major AI developers to publicly share their model safety protocols, with exemptions for firms earning less than $500 million annually.Billionaire investor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman also defended Anthropic this week, calling the company “one of the good guys.” Hoffman, an early investor in OpenAI and a current shareholder, said that Greylock, where he is a partner, has also invested in Anthropic.Sacks responded to Hoffman’s post, and the two exchanged comments online. Sacks wrote that the “real issue” is “Anthropic’s agenda to backdoor Woke AI and other AI regulations through Blue states like California.”Amodei clarified Anthropic’s position soon after, stating that the company has consistently supported a unified federal approach rather than state-by-state laws. “When we agree, we say so. When we don’t, we propose an alternative for consideration. We do this because we are a public benefit corporation with a mission to ensure that AI benefits everyone and to maintain America’s lead in AI,” Amodei noted.“Again, we believe we share those goals with the Trump administration, both sides of Congress, and the public,” he added.
