Joe Lonsdale, an Anthropic investor, Palantir co-founder and founder of venture firm 8VC, said on Friday, 25 September 2026, at the Reuters Momentum AI event in Austin that warnings from some AI companies about existential risks were, in his reading, a dangerous attempt to shape public policy.

Lonsdale criticised what he described as efforts by people close to Anthropic and at OpenAI to fund outside groups advocating stronger regulation. In his view, a small number of laboratories could thereby write the rules and entrench their market power.

“I think that what OpenAI and Anthropic are pushing right now is very dangerous, and we don't want an oligopoly that controls all of our policy here with the government,” Lonsdale said, according to Reuters. He added that safety is real, but that “fear and regulation — we've got to be really careful how we respond to those things.”

The same Reuters report notes that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk have this month called for leading firms to slow development of their most advanced models, citing existential risks if safeguards lag. This article does not umpire that debate.

Lonsdale, 44, tempered the criticism: he said he was proud to be a small investor in Anthropic and praised the company’s talent and standing. The remarks remain those of an investor with a sector interest, not a regulator.

The policy question is how to balance safety, accountability and transparency with real market access for new competitors. No new rule is reported here as adopted.

Image: Larry D. Moore, downtown Austin (2018), CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; the Reuters event city, not a 2026 conference photograph.

Source consulted: Anthropic investor Lonsdale says AI firms stoking fear to sway policy — Reuters.