Anthropic appoints a national security expert to its governing trust

A day after announcing new AI models designed for U.S. national security applications, Anthropic has appointed a national security expert, Richard Fontaine, to its long-term benefit trust.

Anthropic’s long-term benefit trust is a governance mechanism that Anthropic claims helps it promote safety over profit, and which has the power to elect some of the company’s board of directors. The trust’s other members include Centre for Effective Altruism CEO Zachary Robinson, Clinton Health Access Initiative CEO Neil Buddy Shah, and Evidence Action President Kanika Bahl.

In a statement, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that Fontaine’s hiring will “[strengthen] the trust’s ability to guide Anthropic through complex decisions” about AI as it relates to security.

“Richard’s expertise comes at a critical time as advanced AI capabilities increasingly intersect with national security considerations,” Amodei continued. “I’ve long believed that ensuring democratic nations maintain leadership in responsible AI development is essential for both global security and the common good.”

Fontaine, who as a trustee won’t have a financial stake in Anthropic, previously served as a foreign policy adviser to the late Sen. John McCain and was an adjunct professor at Georgetown teaching security studies. For more than six years, he led the Center for A New American Security, a national security think tank based in Washington, D.C., as its president.

Anthropic has increasingly engaged U.S. national security customers as it looks for new sources of revenue. In November, the company teamed up with Palantir and AWS, the cloud computing division of Anthropic’s major partner and investor, Amazon, to sell Anthropic’s AI to defense customers.

To be clear, Anthropic isn’t the only top AI lab going after defense contracts. OpenAI is seeking to establish a closer relationship with the U.S. Defense Department, and Meta recently revealed that it’s making its Llama models available to defense partners. Meanwhile, Google is refining a version of its Gemini AI capable of working within classified environments, and Cohere, which primarily builds AI products for businesses, is also collaborating with Palantir to deploy its AI models.

Fontaine’s hiring comes as Anthropic beefs up its executive ranks. In May, the company named Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings to its board.