Chris Liddell, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, listens during an American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, June 26, 2020.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Anthropic on Friday announced it has appointed longtime executive and political operative Chris Liddell to its board of directors.
Liddell previously served as the CFO of Microsoft, the vice chairman of General Motors and the deputy White House chief of staff during President Donald Trump’s first term. He has also been involved in three presidential transition cycles, according to his website.
Anthropic’s decision to add Liddell to its board could foster some goodwill with the Trump administration, which has lashed out at the artificial intelligence startup in recent months.
David Sacks, the venture capitalist serving as the administration’s AI and crypto czar, accused Anthropic of supporting “woke AI” in October because of its stance on regulation.
“My career has taught me the governance of transformative technologies matters as much as the technologies themselves,” Liddell said in a statement on Friday. “Anthropic’s approach—building AI that’s both capable and responsible—is critical for our future, and it’s why I’m proud to be joining the company’s Board.”
On Thursday, Anthropic announced that it would contribute $20 million to Public First Action, which backs pro-AI regulation candidates, including Republicans Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Pete Ricketts from Nebraska.
Trump signed an executive order in December to push for a single regulatory framework for AI, establishing a litigation task force to challenge state AI laws, namely those led by Democratic lawmakers.
Anthropic was founded by a group of former OpenAI executives and researchers in 2021, and it’s best known for developing a family of AI models called Claude. On Thursday, the company announced it closed a $30 billion funding round at a $380 billion post-money valuation.
Liddell will serve as the sixth member of Anthropic’s board, joining CEO Dario Amodei, President Daniela Amodei and Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings, among others. Members of Anthropic’s board are selected by stockholders and its Long-Term Benefit Trust, which serves as the company’s independent governance structure.
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