SCIENCE & TECH: Exclusive | AI giant Anthropic faces possible clash with White House –

AI giant Anthropic is facing a possible head-on collision with the Trump administration — as concerns from conservatives multiply that the fast-growing firm carries a left-wing bias, The Post has learned.

Investors in the San Francisco-based company — known for its popular Claude chatbot — include the Ford Foundation, a notoriously left-leaning group that bought $5 million worth of Anthropic shares in March 2024 in the bankruptcy of disgraced Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto empire, according to little-noticed court filings.

Earlier this month, Vice President JD Vance called out the Ford Foundation by name while vowing to “go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence” following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

That’s after Anthropic recently irritated Trump officials by barring federal contractors from using its tools for some law enforcement purposes. Some at the White House have grumbled that Anthropic, whose CEO Dario Amodei is a prominent Democratic donor, could be “selectively enforcing its policies” due to differing political views, Semafor reported.

Taken together, the two data points are likely to invite unwelcome scrutiny for Anthropic — even as rivals including Sam Altman’s OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI have worked to curry favor with the White House, a source close to the Trump administration said.

“When [the White House] is looking for a collaborative partner and suddenly they start being obstinate over White House objectives, and it comes to surface that they got a significant investment from a hostile political organization – which is what I would consider the Ford Foundation to be – I think you’re going to see a lot of eyebrows being raised,” the source added.

Anthropic, whose backers include Amazon and Google, is competing with OpenAI, xAI and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta for everything from lucrative federal contracts to crafting potential federal regulations around AI.

But even before the latest flap over AI usage by federal contractors, Anthropic’s relationship with the White House – and key administration officials like AI czar David Sacks – was already seen as shaky at best.

Anthropic’s Amodei called Trump a “feudal warlord” in a now-deleted social media post expressing support for Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election. In 2018, he described Trump as a “serious and legitimate threat to the rule of law.”

During a May episode of the popular “All In” podcast, Sacks said Anthropic was part of group of tech “doomers” that he described as “committed leftists” and “Trump haters” with ties to the effective altruism movement, which once counted Bankman-Fried among its elite backers.

Sacks also pointed out that several ex-Biden administration staffers had joined Anthropic and that Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, a Democratic megadonor, was part of its board of directors.

Amodei was one of the few tech honchos who skipped Trump’s inauguration in January, though he did attend an administration event about energy policy in Pittsburgh in July.

He has also raised the hackles of some AI leaders with frequent warnings about the technology’s risks. Amodei has said executives and politicians should stop “sugar-coating” the mass layoffs that could occur due to AI and suggested unemployment could hit 20%. He’s also warned of a 25% chance that things go “really, really badly” for humanity as AI gets more advanced.

Daniela Amodei, his sister and a fellow co-founder of Anthropic, has a long history of donating to Democrats, include Harris, Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

“When it comes to policy and trying to foment the golden age of American economic dominance, the White House is looking for partners who want to put America first and want to work together collaboratively,” the source close to the White House added.

Despite its differences with the administration, Anthropic has secured a number of federal contracts – including a $200 million contract with the Department of War and a partnership with the US General Services Administration.

Anthropic has also expressed support for the White House’s AI Action Plan, declaring it was “encouraged by the plan’s focus on accelerating AI infrastructure and federal adoption, as well as strengthening safety testing and security coordination.”

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Anthropic’s valuation was just $18.4 billion in early 2024. But as of earlier this month, Anthropic had secured an $183 billion post-money valuation. Depending on the share structure, that means Ford Foundation’s stake, while tiny compared to key backers like Google and Amazon, has seen a huge increase in value over the last year.

An Anthropic spokesperson said the Ford Foundation represents a small fraction of the firm’s overall investor base. Ford does not have any influence over Anthropic’s policy positions or business activities, the spokesperson added.

“We are committed to protecting America’s lead in AI, defending and upholding America’s democratic values, and contesting the advance of authoritarian adversaries,” the Anthropic spokesperson said. “As part of that commitment, Anthropic was an early mover in deploying AI for national security and intelligence work, and we work with the intelligence community in many different capacities.”

The spokesperson also pushed back on the notion that Anthropic has a rift with the Trump administration.

While Anthropic’s policies bar the use of its AI tools for “direct domestic surveillance and related collection of data,” multiple federal law enforcement agencies “are currently using Claude for research, analysis, and other use cases.”

Other AI giants, including OpenAI, Microsoft and Google, have policies restricting use of their AI tools for surveillance purposes.

A Ford Foundation spokesperson said: “Like any other passive investor in a company, the Ford Foundation has no role in Anthropic’s management or business activities.”

Vance, who co-hosted an episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” after the assassination, alleged that the Ford Foundation and the George Soros-backed Open Society Foundations had provided funding to progressive magazine The Nation.

The vice president slammed the outlet for misrepresenting Kirk’s words in an article titled “Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning.” In response, Open Society said it never funded The Nation, while Ford Foundation said it hasn’t funded the outlet since 2019.

The allegation was part of a larger pledge by Vance to target progressive groups that he accused of stoking a rise of left-wing violence.