WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) sent a letter to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calling out the hypocrisy of Anthropic’s plans to IPO, tying millions of Americans’ hard earned dollars to the company’s success, while simultaneously claiming his technology could lead to human extinction. In his letter, Senator Moreno urged Mr. Amodei to follow the White House’s lead and focus on the ways that Super Intelligence (“SI”) can be used to improve the lives of Americans and defend against real, SI-enabled threats.
“These questions are even more consequential as Anthropic prepares to go public and invite millions of Americans to tie their financial futures to the development and success of your company’s technology,” wrote Senator Moreno. “With investors discussing a valuation approaching $2 trillion (about 42 times Anthropic’s revenue and double what the company was worth four months ago), and trading expected as soon as October 2026, Anthropic’s entrance into the public market will be one of the largest in history. While I applaud any company that gives hardworking Americans access to its success, I do not understand how you can ask them to invest their hard-earned savings in Anthropic’s continued development while warning those same Americans that your product could ultimately lead to their extinction.”
Read the full text of the letter HERE or below.
October 5, 2026
Mr. Dario Amodei
Chief Executive Officer
Anthropic PBC
548 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94104
Dear Mr. Amodei,
Anthropic, PBC (“Anthropic”) maintains a leading presence in the Super Intelligence (“SI”) ecosystem. As Anthropic’s co-founder and a prominent public voice on SI, you, Mr. Amodei, are viewed by the American public and policymakers as one of the technology’s principal stewards. The systems Anthropic is developing could change the American way of life forever. With great power comes great responsibility, and in this case, I am concerned that you are failing to meet the moment.
Anthropic’s recent actions and statements reflect an alarmist approach to SI that places extraordinary emphasis on the technology’s most catastrophic outcomes. As you know, SI researcher Jacob Coxon recently quit his job at Anthropic and accused your company and its business rival, OpenAI, of “gambling with our lives.” Mr. Coxon publicized his exit on Twitter, claiming, “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible – but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”
That same day, one of Anthropic’s top safety experts, Evan Hubinger, agreed with Mr. Coxon, tweeting, “Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.” A couple of days after these tweets, you appeared on CNN and said, “It’s funny, I agree with Jacob Coxon on far more than I disagree with him.” You have also been on the record as saying that there’s a twenty-five percent chance that developing SI further will go “really, really badly.” These statements, which include your own words, indicate that your instinct is to wreak havoc on the public SI discourse. Yet your panic-inducing commentary frames SI as an existential threat without providing information to the American people about how SI technology can also be used to combat and defend against the very safety threats you emphasize.
These questions are even more consequential as Anthropic prepares to go public and invite millions of Americans to tie their financial futures to the development and success of your company’s technology. With investors discussing a valuation approaching $2 trillion (about 42 times Anthropic’s revenue and double what the company was worth four months ago), and trading expected as soon as October 2026, Anthropic’s entrance into the public market will be one of the largest in history. While I applaud any company that gives hardworking Americans access to its success, I do not understand how you can ask them to invest their hard-earned savings in Anthropic’s continued development while warning those same Americans that your product could ultimately lead to their extinction.
I am equally concerned that this focus on potential catastrophic outcomes risks crowding out an equally important public debate: how American SI leadership can strengthen U.S. national security, counter SI-powered attacks from our adversaries, and ensure that the United States, not China, shapes the future of this technology. Rather than highlighting how SI could end humanity, public discourse around SI should focus on developing solutions to the real vulnerabilities SI has found in American critical infrastructure and cybersecurity. We should not unnecessarily metastasize SI ‘doomerism,’ but rather recognize that SI, like any cutting-edge technology, presents risks that must be addressed by companies who are able to rise to the occasion. I am sincerely hopeful you and your company will work to develop and propagate such solutions as opposed to publicly pontificating the worst-case scenario. Adding your signature to the White House Accord on Super Intelligence is a notable first step. I applaud President Trump’s unwavering commitment to American dominance in responsible SI development.
Public discourse around SI should center on how American innovators, working where appropriate with the U.S. government, can harness this technology to strengthen U.S. national security, improve the lives of American people, and position the country to respond to our adversaries’ increasingly sophisticated SI-enabled threats. We must address the risks associated with frontier SI. Doing so does not require halting its development or surrendering American technological dominance. It requires confronting those risks with the same ingenuity and creativity that have defined American innovation for generations.
Sincerely,
BERNIE MORENO
UNITED STATES SENTAOR