Trump Administration Memo Targets Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as Face of AI 'Doomerism'

A White House memo circulating this week has singled out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as the embodiment of AI "doomerism" and effective altruism, positioning his company at the center of political criticism over AI safety advocacy just weeks before a record-setting initial public offering. The document, penned by a Trump political adviser, characterizes effective altruism—the philosophical movement behind efforts to maximize beneficial outcomes through evidence-based reasoning—as "a fringe, cultish collective out of touch with mainstream America." It accuses the movement of having "built the AI-doom pipeline" and contends that effective altruism prioritizes "foreigners over citizens, shrimp over families, future hypothetical people over the living, and on the current agenda, possible machine minds over Americans." The memo identifies both Dario and his sister Daniela Amodei, who serves as Anthropic president, as founders of the effective altruism network, referring to these connections as "The Anthropic knot."