Powell, Bessent met with U.S. Bank CEOs over Anthropic’s Mythos threat
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with major U.S. bank CEOs this week to discuss potential cyber risks posed by Anthropic’s Mythos model, CNBC reported Friday.
The bank presidents were in Washington, D.C., for a Financial Services Forum board meeting on Tuesday when a private meeting was held to discuss the Mythos, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named to share information on a confidential matter.
The CEOs had dinner earlier in the week when they were summoned to a meeting at the Treasury Department, one of the sources said. JPMorgan’They added that the only major banking CEO who could not attend the meeting was Jamie Dimon.
Bank of AmericaBrian Moynihan, citigroupJane Fraser, Goldman Sachs David Solomon, CEO Morgan StanleyTed Pick and Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf all attended the meeting, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the meeting.
Bloomberg And Finance Times They were the first to report the meeting with bank executives.
The Federal Reserve declined to comment to CNBC. The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The surprise meeting between bank presidents and the two most powerful federal monetary regulators was a sign that AI’s advanced capabilities are of greatest concern to the Trump administration and could threaten the foundation of the U.S. financial system.
Earlier this week, Anthropic released its new AI model, Claude Mythos Preview, in limited capacity due to concerns that hackers could exploit its capabilities.
Banking giant JPMorgan Chase was among the initial launch partners of the cybersecurity initiative known as Project Glasswing. Among other partners Apple, Google, Microsoft And Nvidia.
The company briefed senior US government officials about the model and its “offensive and defensive cyber applications” before its launch.
An Anthropic official told CNBC that it is in “ongoing discussions” with the US government, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Center for Artificial Intelligence Standards and Innovation, about Claude Mythos Preview’s cyber capabilities.
“The dangers of getting this wrong are clear, but if we get it right, there is a real opportunity to create a fundamentally safer internet and world than we had before the advent of AI-enabled cyber capabilities,” the CEO said. Dario Amodei wrote X in a post on the launch of Glasswing.
The Trump administration’s push on the Mythos model comes as Anthropic challenged the Department of Defense over its recent labeling of its AI lab as a supply chain risk to national security.
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly criticized the company for insisting on limiting the use of its AI technology in warfare, and the president ordered federal departments to halt the use of Anthropic platforms.
The Department of Defense continued to use Claude during the Iran war, CNBC previously reported.
This week, a federal appeals court rejected the company’s request to temporarily block the blacklisting. In March, a federal judge in San Francisco granted Anthropic’s request for a preliminary injunction in a separate lawsuit.
The dueling rulings mean Anthropic will be barred from Department of Defense contracts but can continue to work with other government agencies as each legal challenge progresses.
Late last month, cyber stocks fell after Fortune discovered a draft blog post from Anthropic laying out the model’s advanced cyber capabilities and potential risks.
Hackers have used Anthropic’s models to launch AI-powered attacks in the past.
In November, the company announced that a Chinese group was using Claude to automate attacks against government and corporate targets.
