Elon Musk Says Dario Amodei Is Right About AI Risk

When Anthropic's CEO published a lengthy essay over the weekend arguing the AI industry needs to slow down, one of his most prominent rivals didn't wait long to respond. Elon Musk replied on X with two words: "Dario is right." Sam Altman followed with his own endorsement, and within a day the rare agreement among competing CEOs was rattling chip stocks across the market.

Musk didn't stop at a brief reply. He went on to frame his endorsement as consistent with a position he's held for years, rather than a new conversion. A few details fill out where he's coming from:

• Musk said he's been "sounding the alarm" on AI for some time, linking back to a 2023 post where he wrote that "AGI is significantly higher risk than nuclear weapons, in my opinion"
• In a follow-up reply, he specified what kind of oversight he'd actually support: "peer review of AI by competitors is the right way to start this off"
• Amodei's original essay centered on the risk of recursive self-improvement — AI systems that could "outrun our ability to understand and control" themselves

The endorsement sits awkwardly next to Musk's own business interests, which include xAI's Grok, SpaceX's data center buildout, and Tesla's robotaxi and Optimus programs — all of which depend on the same rapid AI progress he's now warning about.

That tension isn't lost on observers, and it echoes a pattern from Musk's history, including his 2023 signature on an open letter calling for a pause on advanced AI training.

What's different this time is timing: with Amodei, Altman and Musk all voicing some version of caution within the same 48 hours, and President Trump publicly dismissing the concerns as overblown, the disagreement has moved from an abstract debate into something markets are now actively pricing in.