White House memo brands Amodei the face of AI 'doomerism' before Anthropic's $2 trillion IPO

According to Cryptopolitan, backers are weighing a valuation near $2 trillion and a raise of as much as $100 billion for a company whose most recent private round valued it at about $965 billion ^[11][12]. Public buyers would pay about 2.07 times the last private price, roughly $1 trillion of added value, for a stake of around 5% ^[1][2]. On those terms a 5% discount to the headline valuation is $100 billion, the size of the whole raise ^[3].

Most of the memo is insult. According to Axios, which saw the document and attributes it to a Trump political adviser, it describes Anthropic staff as "Biden-era liberals, Democrats and strange Californians" and says Amodei prioritizes "foreigners over citizens, shrimp over families, future hypothetical people over the living" ^[16][3]. Axios, citing a source close to the administration, said Amodei "is the embodiment of an ideology and globalist approach to innovation that's counter to the president's America First agenda" ^[15]. Daniela Amodei said in a 2025 Wired interview, "I don't identify with that terminology," and her brother has denied belonging to the effective altruism movement in several interviews ^[4].

The memo may stay a campaign document. Axios reported that Trump surrogates see Amodei as an easy target ahead of the midterm elections, a prospect it called worrisome for investors betting on a record IPO ^[5]. Administrative action is the second path, and it has precedent: Anthropic was hit with a supply chain designation earlier this year ^[6]. On the third path, the position under attack stops being Anthropic's alone. Elon Musk and Sam Altman agreed with Amodei on the need "to pace the frontier," and OpenAI global policy chief Chris Lehane told reporters on September 15 that OpenAI had worked with Anthropic and Google DeepMind on safety for weeks ^[7][8]. Lehane added that OpenAI backs a FRONTIER Act provision requiring frontier labs to admit "independent verification organizations" ^[8].

I think the designation matters more to this offering than the memo does. A designation is a government act that customers and contractors have to respond to. A memo passed around political staff obliges nobody to do anything.

The counter-case is that the president is personally involved. On September 14 Trump accused Amodei on Truth Social of "pretending to be a 'perfect little angel'" after the chief executive's essay urging labs to slow frontier AI development, and argued that the only guardrail the industry needs is "a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT" ^[9]. Vice President JD Vance told reporters that so many AI firms asking to be regulated "feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse" ^[10]. White House officials had earlier cancelled a proposed meeting between Trump and Amodei because "Dario's a little too weird" for the president, according to Axios, citing a senior official ^[13].

I would be wrong if the price drifts toward the $965 billion private mark before any new agency action. That would mean words alone moved it ^[12]. The report does not link the move from October to November to the feud ^[11].