Trump To Dine With the AI CEO His Pentagon Blacklisted: Is the Feud Over?

President Donald Trump will host Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at a private White House dinner on Sunday evening, Axios reported. The meeting comes two days after a federal court sided with the Pentagon in its fight with Anthropic.

Anthropic is the San Francisco company behind Claude, one of America’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots. It is the first one-on-one meeting between the two men.

Pentagon Blacklist Upheld on Friday

In March, the Pentagon labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” shutting it out of defense work.

The department said Claude’s built-in limits and an unresolved contract dispute could make it unreliable for military operations. Anthropic had refused to let Claude power lethal autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans.

On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit upheld the label in a 2-1 vote. The dissenting judge argued the law does not treat “a contractor’s honest and upfront enforcement of restrictions” as grounds for blacklisting.

A lower court had earlier ruled the other way. District Judge Rita Lin said the government’s actions aimed “to make a public example” of Anthropic.

Is the Feud Over?

Axios described Sunday’s dinner as a sign of thawing relations after a difficult year.

Trump invited Amodei personally after a scheduling conflict kept him away from Thursday’s state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

🇺🇸 Something big could happen tonight for the AI space at the White House.President Trump is hosting Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for a private dinner.This is strange timing.On September 14, Trump targeted Amodei directly on Truth Social.He mocked him for "pretending to be… pic.twitter.com/brq6LCvRwm

— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) September 27, 2026

Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sat at the head table, according to Forbes.

The political attacks have not stopped. A memo from a Trump political adviser recently cast Amodei as a leading voice of AI “doomerism”, the belief that AI could threaten humanity. Trump has also criticized Amodei on Truth Social over his calls to slow AI development.

The friction lands as Anthropic prepares to go public. The company has moved its planned stock market listing to November, with valuations near $2 trillion under discussion.

Tuesday’s AI Summit Comes Next

Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson meet top AI CEOs at the White House on Tuesday. The full guest list has not been released.

A White House official gave Axios the administration’s position.

“President Trump has been clear: America will lead the world in Super Intelligence, while protecting American consumers.”

Neither side has said what Trump and Amodei will discuss tonight, or whether the Pentagon label is on the table.