For almost two weeks, high-ranking team members at Anthropic have been in talks with the Trump Administration, trying to get a highly restrictive export control directive lifted. According to a new report from Wired, these talks weren’t going well, and that was at least in part because CEO Dario Amodei was involved, but it’s being reported that since Amodei left the talks, things are looking up. Per Wired, the White House is now talking to Tom Brown, another Anthropic co-founder (that’s his entire job title according to his LinkedIn). An anonymous person involved in the calls reportedly told Wired “Tom Brown is not being a weirdo like Dario and can actually engage.” Amodei was reportedly hard to deal with, and, Wired’s sources claim, wasn’t being a good listener. Past reporting has claimed Amodei has a tendency to “rant” and that he “cannot control his emotions.” If you’ve ever seen videos of Amodei, including ones made in friendly circumstances, you’ll know his natural facial expression is a bit queasy, that he has a trumpet-like speaking voice, that he waves his arms when he speaks, and that he will sometimes not just break eye contact but tilt his whole head toward the ground while speaking.