Anthropic names ex-California Supreme Court justice as global affairs chief

Anthropic named Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar its first chief global affairs officer, elevating a former California Supreme Court justice to a role built for the policy fights now shaping artificial intelligence. The appointment puts one of the industry’s most safety-focused companies closer to the diplomatic, legal and regulatory battles that will decide how AI is tested, governed and deployed.

Cuéllar will lead policy, strategic international engagement and government relationships worldwide, and he will report to Anthropic president Daniela Amodei. Anthropic said his background spans law, technology, international security and public institutions at the international, national and state levels, a résumé that fits a company increasingly forced to operate like a political institution as much as a builder of software.

The move comes as Anthropic’s Claude models face what the company described as vast policy challenges and changing regulation. Governments in the United States, Europe and Asia are tightening scrutiny over safety testing, model transparency, data use, national security concerns and competition with Chinese AI developers. Anthropic’s decision to create a top global affairs post suggests those questions are now central to product strategy, not just external compliance.

Cuéllar arrived with unusual credentials for the job. He has served on California’s highest court, taught at Stanford University and spent years in public-policy work. He recently stepped down as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which Anthropic described as a leading independent global policy research institution with scholars in 20 countries. He also co-led the California Report on Frontier AI Policy, released June 17, 2025, alongside Jennifer Tour Chayes and Li Fei-Fei, giving him recent experience in state-level AI governance.

The hire lands in the middle of a broader Washington scramble over AI safety. Meta, Anthropic, Google and OpenAI were set to meet Trump administration officials about AI safety tests, a sign that the biggest developers are now negotiating directly with the federal government over how advanced models should be evaluated. President Donald Trump’s administration has also taken a hard line on technology, trade and national security, issues that increasingly overlap in debates over AI exports, competition with China and the use of advanced systems in sensitive settings.

For Anthropic, Cuéllar’s role is likely to touch all of that at once. A former justice, a Stanford academic and a global policy executive, he gives the company a senior voice for conversations that now reach far beyond engineering teams and into the rooms where AI rules are being written.