Treasury Secretary and Fed Chair Summon Bank CEOs Over Anthropic's Mythos AI Risks

In an unprecedented move, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell summoned the CEOs of America's largest banks to an emergency meeting at the Treasury Department on Tuesday — not about a financial crisis, but about an AI model.
The subject: Anthropic's Claude Mythos Preview, the frontier AI model that the company says can identify and exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser.
Who Was in the Room
The meeting included the CEOs of the country's most systemically important financial institutions:
- Citigroup
- Morgan Stanley
- Bank of America
- Wells Fargo
- Goldman Sachs
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was notably unable to attend. The fact that both the Treasury Secretary and the Fed Chair personally convened this meeting signals just how seriously the government is taking the threat.
Why the Alarm
When Anthropic announced Mythos Preview earlier this week, it revealed that the model had found thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities in critical software infrastructure — flaws that "literally decades of security researchers" had missed. The company decided not to release the model publicly, instead launching Project Glasswing to use it defensively.
But the government's concern isn't just about Mythos itself. It's about what Mythos represents: a new era where AI models can find and exploit software vulnerabilities at superhuman speed. If Anthropic built this capability, other labs — or hostile actors — may not be far behind.
For banks, which hold trillions in assets and process millions of transactions daily, the implications are existential. A model that can find zero-day vulnerabilities in "every major operating system and every major web browser" could theoretically be used to breach financial infrastructure at scale.
What the Government Wants
The meeting was aimed at ensuring banks are:
- Aware of the threat: Many bank executives may not have fully grasped the scale of what Mythos can do
- Upgrading defenses: Banks need to accelerate their own AI-powered security tools and vulnerability patching
- Coordinating response: The financial sector needs a unified approach to AI-era cybersecurity threats
Anthropic has been in ongoing talks with the U.S. government about Mythos's capabilities, and access to the model is currently limited to about 40 technology companies including Microsoft and Google through Project Glasswing.
A New Kind of Emergency
This meeting is without precedent. Treasury Secretaries and Fed Chairs have summoned bank CEOs before — during the 2008 financial crisis, during COVID market disruptions — but never over an AI model. The fact that a technology company's product launch triggered a government-level emergency response marks a fundamental shift in how AI is perceived at the highest levels of power.
The enterprise AI landscape is evolving far faster than regulatory frameworks can keep up. With OpenAI projecting $102 billion in advertising revenue and Meta committing $35 billion to AI infrastructure, the financial stakes of AI capabilities are growing exponentially — as are the risks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did the Treasury and Fed summon bank CEOs?
Treasury Secretary Bessent and Fed Chair Powell convened an urgent meeting to warn bank CEOs about cybersecurity risks posed by Anthropic's Mythos AI model, which can find vulnerabilities in every major operating system and browser at superhuman speed.
Which bank CEOs attended?
CEOs from Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs attended. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was unable to join.
What is the threat to banks?
Mythos-class AI models can discover software vulnerabilities faster than they can be patched, potentially enabling attacks on financial infrastructure. Banks process trillions daily and are prime targets for AI-powered cyber threats.
Has this happened before?
No. This is the first time a Treasury Secretary and Fed Chair have summoned bank CEOs over an AI model. Previous emergency meetings were about financial crises (2008) or market disruptions (COVID). This marks a new era of AI-driven government concern.