Art by Clark Miller; Getty ImagesAs Tech Leaders Flatter Trump, Anthropic Takes a Cooler Approach
Hiring Biden-era Democrats. Opposing a proposed ban on state AI regulation. So far, Anthropic doesn’t seem to be trying to endear itself to the Trump Administration the way its tech peers have.
In June, the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic was finally getting close to hiring a candidate—a Republican—for its top government relations job after months of searching for someone. That decision marked a shift: Anthropic had hired several former Biden staffers earlier in the year, which had aggravated people in the Trump administration working on AI issues, according to two people familiar with the situation.
But after further discussion inside Anthropic, the company changed course. It called off the hire of the Republican candidate and instead promoted Sarah Heck, an existing staffer who had worked in the Obama administration.
In an interview last week, Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark said the company is now bringing on another government relations person who will report to Heck and be the company’s main point of contact in Washington D.C. Clark declined to identify the person or say whether they were a Republican or a Democrat.