National security expert Richard Fontaine appointed to Anthropic’s long-term benefit trust

Source: Anthropic Date: 2025-06-07 URL: https://www.anthropic.com/news/national-security-expert-richard-fontaine-appointed-to-anthropic-s-long-term-benefit-trust

Summary

Richard Fontaine (CEO, Center for a New American Security; prior: NSC, State Department, Capitol Hill, Defense Policy Board) was appointed to Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust. Dario Amodei cited the importance of “ensuring democratic nations maintain leadership in responsible AI” for global security as the rationale.

Implications

• Corporate governance / LTBT composition shift. The original LTBT trustees (Matheny, Bahl, Shah, Christiano, Robinson) were primarily aligned with AI safety/EA backgrounds. Fontaine’s appointment from CNAS (hawkish national security think tank) signals that the Trust’s governance frame was expanding from “existential risk from AI” to “AI in the context of great-power competition.” The change is ideological.
• CNAS framing. CNAS is notably hawkish on China/Russia — it’s not a neutral policy institution. Fontaine’s appointment aligns Anthropic’s governance more explicitly with the US national security establishment’s concerns about adversarial AI. This is relevant to the subsequent DOE, DOD, and GSA contracting relationships.
• Post-ASL-3 timing. The appointment came two weeks after ASL-3 activation — the governance structure was being reinforced at the same time the safety threshold was crossed. The LTBT needs national security expertise precisely because CBRN is the reason ASL-3 was triggered.
• Watch: Fontaine’s influence on the LTBT’s actual governance decisions; whether CNAS’s positions on AI regulation tracked with Anthropic’s policy positions; how the appointment read to the AI safety community relative to the original EA-aligned trustees.