New Delhi, May 1 -- SINCE PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP returned to power in 2025, he has courted a cadre of Silicon Valley billionaires, with one big exception. The White House has long had Dario Amodei, co-founder of Anthropic, an artificial-intelligence (AI) lab, in its crosshairs. On February 27th Mr Trump unleashed the full force of his government against Anthropic in a sharply escalating row over the use of AI in war. The implications could seriously damage one of America's leading AI pioneers. But the fallout may spread beyond Anthropic to Silicon Valley at large.

In an unprecedented one-two punch against a big American firm, Mr Trump said he would immediately ban all American federal agencies from using Anthropic's technology. Pete Hegs...