White House To Meet With Anthropic Ceo As Mythos Anxiety Spreads

Dario Amodei, chief executive of artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, is expected to meet with top White House officials today as anxiety grows across Washington over the cybersecurity risks posed by Anthropic’s new AI model Mythos.

According to three people familiar with the plans, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations, Amodei is expected to meet today with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and other Trump administration officials. One of the people said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will also be in attendance.

The meeting comes less than two months after the White House and Defense Department declared Anthropic a risk to the country's national security supply chain, objecting to the company's insistence on limiting its software's use for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. The unprecedented legal standoff between the government and a leading American AI firm has caused federal agencies to fear running afoul of the law if they use Mythos or other Anthropic products.

Alongside the Pentagon and Treasury Department, at least three further agencies have reportedly terminated the use of Anthropic products, including the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Following split judicial decisions in lawsuits brought by Anthropic in California and Washington D.C., some government offices are already skirting the government’s supply chain risk designation and evaluating Mythos’ impact on cybersecurity. And agencies like the Treasury Department — which recently sought access to Mythos in order to determine its implications for banking firms’ cyberdefenses — is one of many now clamoring for guidance on how to proceed.

According to an email sent to federal agencies and obtained by POLITICO, the Office of Management and Budget is now mulling whether agencies will be allowed to use a “modified” version of Mythos.

“We're working closely with model providers, other industry partners, and the intelligence community to ensure the appropriate guardrails and safeguards are in place before potentially releasing a modified version of the model to agencies,” Gregory Barbaccia, OMB’s chief information officer, wrote to multiple federal agencies earlier this week. Barbaccia added that OMB and the Office of the National Cyber Director will “continue to keep everyone updated and are expecting to have more information in the coming weeks.”

National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross convened a call this week with representatives from private sector companies to discuss Mythos, according to one participant on the call, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Cairncross said the ONCD has the backing of Wiles and Vice President JD Vance to lead the Trump administration's response to the hacking capabilities of Anthropic's powerful new model, said the person. During the roughly ten minute call, Cairncross both commended Mythos as a sign of U.S. AI innovation and warned companies about the risks it presented to their networks.

A White House official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, told POLITICO it is proactively engaging with government and industry, including frontier AI labs whose models require technical evaluation and can help secure critical U.S. software vulnerabilities. “The collective effort of all involved will ultimately benefit industry, and our country, as a whole,” the person said.

Spokespeople for OMB, ONCD, Treasury and the vice president's office did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. A spokesperson for Anthropic declined to comment ahead of today’s meeting.

John Hewitt Jones contributed to this report.