Anthropic CEO Says Breakdown of Trust Drove His OpenAI Exit
Dario Amodei, formerly OpenAI's vice president of research, left the company with several colleagues in 2020 and co-founded Anthropic in 2021, placing AI safety and controllability at its core. The two companies are now leading rivals in frontier models, and the divisions that emerged at the time continue to shape whether the industry can reach consensus on governance and safety standards.
In a Bloomberg interview broadcast on June 17, 2026, Anthropic CEO Amodei said he left OpenAI not only because of differences in philosophy but also because of a “breakdown of trust” between him and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. He said it was better for each side to pursue its own vision than to continue arguing, adding that advancing AI safety standards requires building consensus with trusted peers. The interview did not involve any transaction amount.
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The history behind this eventInside the OpenAI-Anthropic Founders’ Decade-Long Feud Over Technology and Power
OpenAI was founded in 2015, and Dario Amodei joined in 2016 before becoming vice president of research. He later fell out with CEO Sam Altman over model development, safety governance and the distribution of power. Dario, his sister Daniela and others founded Anthropic in 2021. The company raised $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation in February 2026, turning a clash of principles into a broader contest over the direction of AI.
A Wall Street Journal investigation published on March 28, 2026, traced nearly a decade of conflict between the two sides. The latest flashpoint came on February 26, when Anthropic rejected a U.S. Department of Defense demand to make Claude available for “all lawful purposes.” It insisted on retaining bans on mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, putting a $200 million contract at risk of cancellation. OpenAI secured a defense agreement with similar guardrails the next day, after which Amodei accused the company’s account of being “a complete and utter lie.”
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