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On October 5, 2026, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) released a letter criticizing Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for emphasizing catastrophic artificial-intelligence risks. Moreno called the company’s discussion of “Super Intelligence” (SI) “alarmist” and argued that Anthropic should also explain AI’s benefits, its potential role in U.S. national security, and ways to defend against AI-enabled threats.
What Moreno said to Amodei
In the letter, Moreno says Anthropic’s public statements give extraordinary weight to the worst possible outcomes of advanced AI. He argues that this emphasis can leave the public without enough information about how the technology might improve people’s lives or help counter the threats the company warns about.
Moreno’s letter puts the disagreement this way: “We must address the risks associated with frontier SI. Doing so does not require halting its development or surrendering American technological dominance.” The statement captures his position: discuss risks, he says, without treating them as a reason to stop development or concede U.S. leadership.
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Moreno objects to what he sees as an imbalance in Anthropic’s messaging. He says the company describes SI as an existential threat but does not give comparable attention to using AI to defend against safety threats. In his words, the “panic-inducing commentary” frames SI as an existential danger “without providing information to the American people about how SI technology can also be used to combat and defend against the very safety threats you emphasize.”
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That is Moreno’s assessment of Anthropic’s communication, not an independent finding that the risks are exaggerated or that defensive AI capabilities will be effective. His letter argues for a broader public conversation rather than establishing how likely catastrophic outcomes are.
What he wants Anthropic to discuss
The letter asks Anthropic to give more attention to the practical and strategic uses of AI. Moreno’s priorities include:
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- Benefits for Americans: how AI could improve people’s lives, alongside discussion of potential harms.
- Cybersecurity and critical infrastructure: how AI might help identify vulnerabilities and defend against AI-enabled attacks.
- U.S. national security: how the technology could contribute to national defense and security.
- Competition with China: how the United States can address risks without giving up technological leadership.
These are the priorities Moreno advances in the letter; they should not be read as proven capabilities or as a settled assessment of U.S. or Chinese AI strength.
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The risk estimates Moreno cites
To support his criticism, Moreno refers to statements attributed to former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon, safety researcher Evan Hubinger, and Amodei. His letter says Hubinger gave a personal estimate of more than a 10% chance that AI could kill all humans within the next decade. It also attributes to Amodei a 25% chance that further SI development could go “really, really badly.”
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Those figures are claims reported by Moreno in his letter, not independently verified forecasts. The underlying social posts and the CNN segment Moreno cites were not available in the sources reviewed, so their original wording and context cannot be confirmed here.
Why Moreno brings up Anthropic’s anticipated IPO
Moreno links the company’s risk messaging to a possible public listing. He argues that it is difficult to ask Americans to invest in Anthropic while warning them that its product could lead to human extinction. The letter says investors were discussing a valuation approaching $2 trillion—about 42 times Anthropic’s revenue—and that trading could begin as soon as October 2026.
Those valuation, revenue-multiple, and timing figures are assertions in Moreno’s October 5 letter. The available sources do not independently verify them, so they should not be treated as confirmed IPO terms or a confirmed listing schedule.
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The central confirmed event is the publication of Moreno’s letter and the criticism it contains. The letter establishes what the senator said, not whether his characterization of Anthropic’s statements is fair, whether the cited estimates are accurate in their original context, or what an eventual public offering might be worth. The sources reviewed also do not establish whether Anthropic or Amodei responded.
Read the letter and announcement from Sen. Moreno’s office. Axios reported on the October 5 letter and summarized Moreno’s criticism.
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