Powell, Bessent met with U.S. Bank CEOs over Anthropic’s Mythos threat

The bank heads were already in Washington, D.C., for a Financial Services Forum board meeting when a special gathering was called on Tuesday to discuss Mythos, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named in order to share information about a confidential matter.

The CEOs had a dinner early in the week when they were called to meet at the Treasury Department, one of the people said. JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon was the only major banking CEO who could not attend the meeting, they added.

Bank of America‘s Brian Moynihan, Citigroup‘s Jane Fraser, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Morgan Stanley‘s Ted Pick, and Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf were all in attendance, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the meeting.

Bloomberg and the Financial Times 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 the bank chiefs and the two most powerful federal monetary regulators was a signal that the advanced capabilities of AI are a top concern in the Trump administration and could threaten the foundation of the U.S. financial system.

Earlier this week, Anthropic rolled out the new artificial intelligence model, Claude Mythos Preview, in a limited capacity due to concerns that hackers could exploit its capabilities.

Banking giant JPMorgan Chase was among the initial launch partners for the cybersecurity initiative, known as Project Glasswing. Other partners include Apple, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia.

An Anthropic official told CNBC that it’s been in “ongoing discussions” with the U.S. government, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, about Claude Mythos Preview’s cyber capabilities.

“The dangers of getting this wrong are obvious, but if we get it right, there is a real opportunity to create a fundamentally more secure internet and world than we had before the advent of AI-powered cyber capabilities,” CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a post to X, accompanying Glasswing’s rollout.

The Trump administration’s engagement about the Mythos model comes as Anthropic challenges the Department of Defense over its recent labeling of the AI lab as a supply chain risk to national security.

President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have publicly lambasted the company for insisting on limits to the use of its AI technology in war and the president ordered federal departments to halt use of Anthropic’s platforms.

The DOD has continued to use Claude during the Iran war, CNBC previously reported.

This week, a federal appeals court denied 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 case.

The duel rulings mean Anthropic will remain barred from DOD contracts but can keep working with other government agencies while each legal challenge moves forward.

Late last month, cyber stocks slumped after Fortune discovered a draft blog post from Anthropic, which revealed the model’s advanced cyber capabilities and possible risks.

Hackers have used Anthropic’s models in the past to orchestrate AI-fueled attacks.

In November, the company disclosed that a Chinese group used Claude to automate a hack on government and corporate targets.