Anthropic’s investors could be the key to ending its Pentagon standoff—but some investors have opposite views

In 2023, as Dario Amodei was fundraising for the company’s $750 million Series D round, an investor was seated with the CEO at a dinner when he recalled him getting worked up in a conversation about safety issues around artificial intelligence.

“When he was talking about the risks of AI, he contorted,” says the investor. “His body twisted. He was really emotionally showing how scared he was.”

It made an impression on the investor, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of impact to their business, and said they believed large language models would never be successful if they weren’t trustworthy.

Now Anthropic’s strong stance on AI safety, and its investors’ commitment to that position, is being tested like never before as the company navigates a high-stakes standoff with the U.S. Department of Defense. By insisting that its Claude AI technology adhere to certain restrictions when used by the military, Anthropic has incurred the wrath of President Donald Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who have retaliated by trying to short-circuit Anthropic’s business.  

For investors in Anthropic, which recently raised $30 billion at a $380 billion ...