AI giant Anthropic’s ties to cult-like Effective – Business News
Anthropic has been combating to persuade the Trump administration it isn’t “woke” – however that may very well be an uphill battle thanks to the AI giant’s ties to the weird, cult-like “Effective Altruism” motion, The Post has discovered.
Popular with Silicon Valley bigwigs, Effective Altruism urges devotees to funnel their money to causes they consider will most benefit humanity sooner or later. Dubbed “long-termism” by followers, these causes embrace climate change, stopping pandemics — and a near-obsession with closely regulating artificial intelligence.
“They believe that only a handful of people can control access – that AI, if not in their hands, will be leveraged to destroy the world,” stated Nathan Leamer, a former FCC coverage adviser and CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies.
“Truly, they have a fully ‘doomer’ apocalypse worldview,” Learner added. “Effective altruism is a governing philosophy that is entirely built on godless progressive ideas.”
Anthropic Co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei speaks on the “How AI Will Transform Business in the Next 18 Months” panel during INBOUND 2025 Powered by HubSpot at Moscone Center on September 04, 2025 in San Francisco, California. Getty Images for HubSpot
Critics notice that EA’s campaign to save humanity hasn’t put a crimp on the extravagant existence of its adherents — amongst them Sam Bankman-Fried. The disgraced FTX kingpin generally known as “SBF” constructed a luxurious Bahamas seashore rental with stolen buyer funds, offering workers free massages whereas he rubbed elbows with celebrities. Elsewhere, EA leaders have drawn flak over their style for personal jets and medieval English manors.
Anthropic — the firm behind the Claude chatbot — is led by CEO Dario Amodei, a 42-year-old, Princeton-trained physicist who as soon as referred to as Trump a “feudal warlord” in a now-deleted social media post and who backed Kamala Harris to be president in 2024.
The San Francisco company has relied closely on money from left-wing EA leaders and Democratic megadonors like SBF since its founding – a proven fact that hasn’t escaped the discover of key figures in Trumpworld, sources close to the state of affairs informed The Post.
The firm’s lefty ties are “certainly on the radar” of key choice makers and have hampered Anthropic’s capacity to gain traction with the administration — whether or not it’s pushing AI insurance policies or vying to win large federal contracts, a source close to the White House stated.
“The government is not going to want to contract with companies that do not have the nation’s best interests at heart,” the source added.
The White House press workplace didn’t return a request for remark.
Anthropic’s cofounders embrace siblings Dario Amodei (left), who’s CEO, and president Daniela Amodei. ANTHROPC
While Amodei has seldom been noticed alongside different tech executives at White House occasions, he has not too long ago stepped up efforts to construct relations with Trump. The Anthropic boss jetted off to Tokyo in late October for a dinner with President Trump and different business leaders, one other source close to the state of affairs stated.
Anthropic officers have additionally been briefing White House officers in latest weeks about their plans to roll out a privately funded compute and vitality strategy to help AI development, the source added.
Meanwhile, an Anthropic spokesperson pushed back on the notion that the firm has a rift with the White House, asserting that the company is aligned with the Trump administration’s views on a quantity of insurance policies.
Amodei has stated on a number of events that he doesn’t establish as half of the EA group, the spokesperson added.
“As Dario said in his statement, Anthropic is committed to constructive engagement on matters of public policy,” a company spokesperson stated in a assertion. “We 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.”
In September, Semafor reported that Anthropic irked White House officers by barring federal contractors from utilizing its instruments for some law enforcement functions, raising issues that Anthropic may very well be “selectively enforcing its policies” over politics.
Anthropic pushed back, noting that a number of federal companies had been presently utilizing its fashions with out situation. The firm’s insurance policies bar the use of its AI instruments for direct home surveillance and information assortment, which is according to rivals like OpenAI, Meta and Microsoft.
“Anthropic is trying to smuggle ideology into federal rule-making under the banner of ‘safety’ and that is exactly what makes Trumpworld view them as hostile,” a former Trump administration official stated. “It feels less like corporate engagement and more like political warfare.”
Dustin Moskovitz was a cofounder of Facebook. BLOOMBERG NEWS
SBF briefly turned Anthropic’s largest investor in April 2022 when he purchased a $500 million stake utilizing FTX buyer funds. Prosecutors later blasted the now-jailed crypto fraudster for making an attempt to float Effective Altruism as a justification for his misdeeds.
Anthropic’s earliest backers included billionaire Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, who loved affect with the Biden White House whereas bankrolling Democratic causes and varied AI security initiatives. Moskovitz has since transferred his stake in Anthropic into a nonprofit vehicle to keep away from the looks of conflicts of pursuits.
“The EAs and Anthropic were killing it during the Biden years. Any official that Biden brought in as an adviser, either official or unofficial, was from this effective altruist worldview,” stated Leamer. “They were living large for the four years from 2021 to 2024, and it’s been a total game change for them.”
Moskovitz additionally launched Open Philanthropy, an EA-focused charity that in 2023 alone poured $15 million into Rand Corporation. The assume tank reportedly performed a key position in crafting President Biden’s government order imposing guardrails on AI – which was revoked by Trump on his first day in workplace.
“We believe that technology and scientific progress have drastically improved human well-being, which is why so much of our work focuses on these areas,” an Open Philanthropy spokesperson stated. “AI has enormous potential to accelerate science, fuel economic growth, and expand human knowledge, but it also poses some unprecedented risks — a view shared by leaders across the political spectrum.”
“We support thoughtful nonpartisan work to help manage those risks and realize the huge potential upsides of AI,” the spokesperson added.
White House AI czar David Sacks has been one of Anthropic’s largest critics. Getty Images
Dario Amodei’s sister, Daniela, is married to Holden Karnofsky, who’s broadly credited as a chief of the EA motion. He served as CEO of Open Philanthropy earlier than stepping down to take a position at Anthropic final 12 months.
Daniela Amodei tried to distance herself from the EA motion as not too long ago as March, when she informed Wired that she was “not an expert on effective altruism” and referred to as it a “bit of an outdated term.”
Meanwhile, Dario Amodei’s frequent warnings about potential AI doom, corresponding to his declare of a 25% probability that issues go “really, really badly” for humanity, have put Anthropic at odds with Trump officers who argue that an overemphasis on AI security dangers stifling innovation.
Last month, Amodei – as soon as blasted by White House AI czar David Sacks as an AI “doomer” and “committed leftist” – printed a weblog post that slammed “a recent uptick in inaccurate claims” about Anthropic’s politics, insisting the company was aligned with the Trump administration on “key areas of AI policy.”
Sacks has repeatedly referred to as Dario Amodei an AI “doomer.” Getty Images
Amodei stated in his weblog post that Anthropic has “publicly praised President Trump’s AI Action Plan” and not too long ago secured a $200 million contract with the US War Department.
“Our longstanding position is that managing the societal impacts of AI should be a matter of policy over politics,” Amodei wrote.
Outside of the EA motion, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, a deep-pocketed Democrat, sits on Anthropic’s board of administrators. Other large backers embrace LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, a main antagonist to the GOP.
Sacks ripped Anthropic’s affiliation with Hoffman whereas alleging on Oct. 14 that Anthropic needed to “backdoor Woke AI and other AI regulations through Blue states like California.”
Disgraced crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried was one of Anthropic’s early traders. Getty Images for CARE For Specia
As The Post reported, Anthropic’s traders additionally embrace the Ford Foundation, a left-wing group not too long ago blasted by Vice President JD Vance for being half of what he referred to as an “NGO network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence” following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The Ford Foundation acquired the minor stake during FTX’s chapter proceedings.
