A Trump-Allied Senator Tells Anthropic's CEO to Stop Warning About AI Extinction Before Selling Americans Stock

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) has a problem with how Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei talks about his own product. In a letter sent Monday and obtained by Axios, Moreno urged Amodei to drop his "alarmist approach" and "panic-inducing commentary" about AI, just as Anthropic prepares to ask the public to buy its shares.

"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," Moreno wrote.

It is the latest swing at Amodei from President Trump's allies, and it flips a basic expectation of public markets. Companies are supposed to tell investors about risk. Moreno is effectively telling a CEO that being candid about the dangers of his product is incompatible with selling stock in it.

The ammunition

Moreno came prepared. He cited Jacob Coxon, the researcher who quit Anthropic in September saying AI companies were "gambling with our lives," and quoted Amodei telling CNN he agrees with Coxon "on far more than I disagree with him." He pointed to Anthropic safety researcher Evan Hubinger putting the odds that AI kills all humans within the next decade at more than 10%, and noted Amodei has put the chance of things going "really, really badly" at 25%.

Those words, Moreno wrote, "indicate that your instinct is to wreak havoc on the public SI discourse."

SI stands for "super intelligence." Moreno uses the term throughout, following Trump's order forcing federal agencies to swap "AI" for "super intelligence". The vocabulary alone tells you which team the letter is playing for.

"With great power comes great responsibility, and in this case, I am concerned that you are failing to meet the moment," he added.

The money

The timing is the point. Moreno wrote that investors are discussing a valuation close to $2 trillion, about 42 times revenue, with trading possibly starting as soon as this month. That is his claim; other reporting has pointed to a pre-Thanksgiving listing at up to $2 trillion. Either way, Anthropic's prospectus already warns investors about risks from US government action, and a sitting senator publicly scolding the CEO is a fairly vivid illustration of that risk factor.

The letter isn't purely hostile, though. Moreno called Amodei's signature on the White House accord on super intelligence "a notable first step." He wants Anthropic to talk more about how AI can defend against the threats it warns about, strengthen national security and keep the US ahead of China.

"We must address the risks associated with frontier SI," he wrote. "Doing so does not require halting its development or surrendering American technological dominance."

The politics

AI anxiety is now a midterm issue. Moreno's fellow Ohio Republican, Sen. Jon Husted, is facing ads accusing him of being pro-data centers as he seeks re-election. A senator telling an AI CEO to sound less scary lands differently when voters are already scared.