White House memo casts Anthropic's Amodei as the face of AI "doomerism"

What happened

A memo circulating inside the White House this week names Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and his sister Daniela Amodei as builders of the effective-altruism network that "built the AI-doom pipeline," Axios reported The memo was written by a Trump political adviser and calls their ties "The Anthropic knot"; Anthropic has distanced itself from effective altruism, and Axios notes the attacks land as the company prepares for an expected record IPO. (Axios)
Trump wrote on Truth Social at 7:24am ET Thursday that superintelligence "will be a big topic of discussion" with Xi, "but I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China's position also. Our guardrail is the DOJ!" He did not say what the DOJ guardrail means or what China's position is; the day before, China's UN ambassador called for a UN-centred global governance framework. (Truth Social post, via Trump's Truth archive, CBS News live updates)
Xi Jinping told the White House arrival ceremony that the US and China "have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people." Trump's own opening remarks listed "security, technology and AI," which he calls "super intelligence," as topics without endorsing new rules; neither leader's public remarks mentioned the US-proposed AI incident-notification line, and China's Foreign Ministry that morning referred a question on it to "competent authorities." (Xinhua, full text of Xi's remarks, AP via Local10, China Foreign Ministry press conference, 09-24)
The White House asked OpenAI and Anthropic not to share new AI models with the UK's AI Security Institute until the models have been tested by the US government, Politico reported The request came from the Office of the National Cyber Director, per a person familiar and a senior administration official who were not named; the official said US-first review has been policy "with every new frontier model." Anthropic appears to have complied so far, since its Claude Mythos 5.1 announcement said the model was "only available to a set of U.S. organizations"; the report does not say whether OpenAI has agreed, and a UK government spokesperson said the institute "continues to work closely with the U.S. government" and with both labs. (Politico, Reuters)
Twenty-six attorneys general, from 24 states plus the District of Columbia and American Samoa, urged congressional leaders in a bipartisan letter to establish federal oversight of frontier AI safety testing while barring federal preemption of state AI laws Washington Attorney General Nick Brown's release says the letter also asks for government-led incident response with public findings, safety leaders "unburdened by profit maximization" and international cooperation "to pace AI advancement and prevent the development of harmful superintelligence." (Washington Attorney General, ABC News)
Google, OpenAI and Anthropic are working toward a joint AI safety standards body, tentatively the Frontier AI Standards Agency, and have approached former White House AI adviser Sriram Krishnan to be its chief executive, The Information reported Secondary coverage says the talks date to July, the body is modelled on the brokerage regulator FINRA, and nothing is finalized: no organization has launched and no rulebook exists. (PANews, citing The Information, Kingy AI)
Sens. Mark Warner and Brian Schatz said they would ask the Senate on Thursday afternoon to pass, by unanimous consent, a bill requiring frontier AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI to have the National Security Agency assess new models before release Warner told Virginia reporters it "probably won't happen" but that he will "keep pushing"; the Washington Sun says the bill would also create a federal AI-safety-incident database, direct NIST to build a risk-assessment system and let the Commerce Department work with foreign countries on testing, and that Sen. Chuck Grassley separately moved to pass his bipartisan AI Whistleblower Protection Act by unanimous consent. No outcome was reported as of about 3pm ET. (Alexandria Brief, Washington Sun, Whistleblower Network News)
The National Security Agency has told lawmakers it is spending billions of dollars this year testing frontier AI models, the Washington Sun reported, citing two sources familiar with classified estimates The sources said the biggest cost is computing power, followed by hiring, and that it has led lawmakers to believe a fuller federal AI oversight regime could cost tens of billions of dollars a year, against roughly $20 million a year for a House bill's proposed AI-risk center; the testing is paid from classified budget lines, the Pentagon declined to give figures, and no other outlet had confirmed the report as of the afternoon. (Washington Sun)
Sens. Andy Kim, Mark Warner and Brian Schatz's Artificial Intelligence Risk Management and Security Act of 2026 would create a permanent AI Safety Board at the Commerce Department — with NIST, CISA, the NSA and Treasury — require frontier developers to give the Board access to models, including weights and runtimes, at least 45 days before public release, and set civil penalties of up to $250,000 per violation per day The bill would also create a national AI incident database requiring reports within 30 days (72 hours for imminent threats) and establish secure federal testing environments using NSA and Department of Energy National Laboratory resources; whether the Senate acted on Warner and Schatz's planned Thursday unanimous-consent request for the bill remains unreported. (Sen. Kim, joint release with Warner and Schatz)
President Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and a group of technology CEOs will meet on artificial intelligence on Tuesday, September 29, Axios first reported, a scoop Reuters and ABC News independently confirmed — attendees and the agenda remain unclear; the meeting comes as AI-company leaders keep pressing for a coordinated pacing or slowdown that Trump has repeatedly dismissed as a "hoax," and lands the same day as OpenAI's own DevDay. ABC News notes the House "left town early until after the midterms," the same recess timing already behind the Senate's stalled Warner-Schatz pre-release-testing push. (ABC News, investingLive, on the Axios report)
Pope Leo XIV told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Thursday that AI can benefit humanity but has introduced "new dangers to security and international peace," urging world leaders to "govern wisely," and is scheduled to address AI again Friday at UNESCO's Paris headquarters — Vatican AI advisor Fr. Paolo Benanti told Reuters "this is not happening on day zero for the Holy See," pointing to the labs' own slowdown calls, which followed his 09-23 remarks (already on this thread) that framed those calls as a "cartel" narrative; Benanti said he could not discuss the confidential AI summit hosted by Britain's King Charles that he had just attended. (Reuters, via Rappler)

Sources 20

Axios axios.com high 0.897 generally reliable
Truth Social post, via Trump's Truth archive trumpstruth.org unrated
CBS News live updates cbsnews.com high 0.88 no consensus
Xinhua, full text of Xi's remarks english.news.cn low 0.327 no consensus
AP via Local10 local10.com solid 0.705
China Foreign Ministry press conference, 09-24 mfa.gov.cn unrated
Politico politico.com unrated
Reuters reuters.com high 1 generally reliable
Washington Attorney General atg.wa.gov unrated
ABC News abcnews.com solid 0.668 generally reliable
PANews, citing The Information panews.io unrated
Kingy AI kingy.ai unrated
Alexandria Brief alexandriabrief.com unrated
Washington Sun washingtonsun.com unrated
Whistleblower Network News whistleblowersblog.org unrated
Washington Sun washingtonsun.com unrated
Sen. Kim, joint release with Warner and Schatz kim.senate.gov unrated
ABC News abcnews.com solid 0.668 generally reliable
investingLive, on the Axios report investinglive.com unrated
Reuters, via Rappler rappler.com unrated

Credibility ratings combine two public datasets: Lin et al. 2023, PNAS Nexus 2(9):pgad286 (CC BY 4.0) for the domain-quality score, and Wikipedia's perennial-sources list (CC BY-SA 4.0) for the reliability tier. A rating describes an outlet's general record, never this particular article. Unrated means absent from those datasets — not a judgement.

The Projection

White House memo casts Anthropic's Amodei as the face of AI "doomerism"

What happened

Sources 20

The wider story