Senator Moreno tells Amodei to drop the alarmist AI talk as Anthropic prepares to go public
He quotes Amodei's own odds of AI going really badly back at him, and asks why Americans should buy the stock.
Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, wrote to Dario Amodei on October 5, 2026 and told him to stop scaring people about AI. His complaint is about timing: Anthropic is getting ready to go public, and Moreno doesn't see how its CEO can sell shares to Americans while warning them the product could kill them.
His office posted the full letter the same day, under the headline "Moreno Blasts Anthropic CEO for Hypocritical Approach to Super Intelligence."
- From
- Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio)
- To
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
- Sent
- October 5, 2026
- Valuation he cites
- approaching $2 trillion
- Trading
- expected as soon as October 2026
What Moreno wrote
He calls Anthropic's approach "alarmist" and its CEO's commentary "panic-inducing." He lines up three pieces of evidence. One is Jacob Coxon, who quit Anthropic and accused it and OpenAI of gambling with our lives. Another is Amodei telling CNN he agrees with Coxon on far more than he disagrees, and the third is Amodei's own estimate of a twenty-five percent chance that things go "really, really badly."
The money is the part he keeps coming back to (it's in the release and in the letter, word for word).
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.
He also put a number on the valuation: about 42 times Anthropic's revenue, and double what the company was worth four months ago.
The researcher he quoted
Moreno also cited Evan Hubinger, one of Anthropic's safety researchers, who backed Coxon on X the same day Coxon went public. Here's the full post. The senator quoted its first two sentences, and the last one is about Anthropic's own plan.
Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.
What he wants instead
Moreno wants Anthropic to talk less about how AI could end humanity and more about defending against AI-enabled attacks, and about keeping the US ahead of China. He praised Amodei for signing the White House accord and called it a first step. Like the White House, he writes Super Intelligence, or SI, where most people write AI.
Granted, the letter sets no deadline for a reply and doesn't ask Anthropic for any documents. I'd read it as a public rebuke more than an inquiry.
It landed the same day Sam Altman's interview with Politico went out, where he set OpenAI against Anthropic from the other direction and said the world should accept some harm from AI. So Anthropic got it from both sides on October 5: a Republican senator says it's too gloomy, and OpenAI's CEO says it's too cautious. Moreno's release carries no reply from Anthropic.
More on Anthropic
- Anyone can download GLM-5.3, and Anthropic says it builds exploits almost as well as MythosSeptember 30, 2026
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 beats Opus 5.5 on Anthropic's terminal coding test, at half the token priceSeptember 28, 2026
- Trump calls Amodei "very highly respected" hours before their White House dinnerSeptember 28, 2026
- Anthropic loses its Pentagon supply chain risk appeal, though judges accept it had no bad motiveSeptember 25, 2026