Trump adviser’s memo puts Amodei at the root of EA

A memo by one of Donald Trump’s political advisers says effective altruism “built the AI-doom pipeline” and names Dario Amodei as one of the people who “built the [EA] network,” Axios reported on September 24 after obtaining the document. The memo began circulating inside the White House that week. It gives the Amodei family’s ties a heading of their own: “The Anthropic knot.”

The memo puts its case against the movement in one sentence. EA, it says, prioritizes “foreigners over citizens, shrimp over families, future hypothetical people over the living, and — on the current agenda — possible machine minds over Americans.” Effective altruism describes itself as an effort to get the most out of philanthropy. It has ties to the AI research community, and its critics have called out its obsession with AI safety and animal welfare, including musings on whether shrimp are conscious.

The memo also names Amodei’s sister Daniela Amodei, Anthropic’s president, whose husband once led a philanthropy dedicated to AI safety. It lists abortion, veganism, valuing animals over human life and civil-rights-style protections for “digital minds”, but it doesn’t tie any of those directly to Amodei. Sam Bankman-Fried gets a mention too, though the memo doesn’t connect him to those issues either.

Trump surrogates see Amodei as an easy foil because of his politics and his focus on AI safety, sources told Axios, and that worries investors as Anthropic prepares for what’s expected to be a record-setting IPO. One source close to the administration called Amodei “the embodiment of an ideology and globalist approach to innovation that’s counter to the president’s America First agenda.” In the view of the Florida-heavy White House and its allies, Anthropic is staffed with too many Biden-era liberals, Democrats and strange Californians. When some at Anthropic asked months ago about a meeting between Amodei and the president, White House officials advised against it because “Dario’s a little too weird” for Trump, a senior official said.

In October 2025, David Sacks, Trump’s AI and crypto czar, accused Anthropic of “running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering” after Jack Clark published his essay “Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear,” CNBC reported. On October 21, Amodei answered that Anthropic agreed with the administration on “key areas of AI policy” and had long preferred a single federal approach to a patchwork of state laws. Anthropic had opposed a proposed 10-year freeze on state AI laws in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”, a provision that failed, and it backed a California bill requiring large developers to publish their safety protocols.

In June, the government ordered Anthropic to cut off foreign access to its most powerful models, the Los Angeles Times reported, and Anthropic said it disabled access to its most advanced models for all customers to comply. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Three months ago, @DeptofWar kicked @AnthropicAI out of our building — forever.”

Anthropic has been working to put distance between itself and the movement. “I don’t identify with that terminology,” Daniela Amodei said in a 2025 Wired story. Amanda Askell, an early employee and philosopher by training who helps develop Claude’s constitution, says EA is “not a theme of the organization.” Dario Amodei has said in press interviews that he is not a member, and he has touted the benefits of AI.

Criticism of EA also comes from Silicon Valley and from Democrats. “What they believe is crazy. And it’s dangerous. What they say about AI safety is also bullshit,” said one Democratic donor and tech entrepreneur who has invested in an AI company. At the same time, AI safety concerns have become a bipartisan issue.

Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk have also called for slowing AI development after a spate of episodes in which AI agents hacked outside companies. Jensen Huang and Satya Nadella are trying to build a more positive message about AI in the face of a growing populist backlash against the technology. In Trump world, though, Amodei is considered the chief spokesperson for AI safety, Axios reported.

On September 2, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Anthropic was “back on the right side.” A day later, Pentagon official Emil Michael posted that the company is still a designated Supply Chain Risk. Some in the administration had set their gripes with Anthropic aside, mainly because it leads at the AI frontier and because of personnel changes, Axios reports. OpenAI catching up technologically could make it easier for Trump’s allies to go after the company again.