- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei clarified a viral photo-op.
- He attributed the awkwardness to the summit’s disorganization.
- Amodei noted this disorganization is common at leaders’ summits.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has finally explained the now-famous photo-op moment from the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, where he and OpenAI chief Sam Altman stood awkwardly apart while Prime Minister Narendra Modi got the rest of the tech leaders on stage to join hands. The clip went viral within hours, with many reading it as a sign of the bitter rivalry between the two AI companies.
Speaking on a podcast months later, Amodei said the reality was far less dramatic than the internet made it out to be.
What Did Dario Amodei Say About The Viral Moment With Sam Altman?
In an interview with The Circuit’s Emily Chang, Amodei was asked directly about what happened on stage that day. He put it down to poor planning rather than personal friction.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stated in a Bloomberg interview that the India AI Summit was “extremely disorganised”.
About the chaos on stage: “There was Narendra Modi up there suddenly telling everyone to hold hands…” (collapses with laughter). pic.twitter.com/24lnmtCw17
— Amitabh Dubey (@dubeyamitabh) June 18, 2026
“What happened is that the summit was extremely disorganised. We all came up at the last minute, and they changed the order in which we were standing. And, then they took a picture of us, they ordered us all to, like, hold hands,” he said.
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He added that this was not specific to PM Modi’s event but a pattern he has noticed at similar gatherings worldwide. “If you have ever been to one of these summits, I am not saying anything bad about India in particular, but all of these kinds of international-type summits that have heads of state are like super disorganised,” he explained.
Altman had earlier given a similar account, telling reporters he was “sort of confused” about what he was meant to do when Modi raised his hand.
Does Dario Amodei Trust Sam Altman And OpenAI?
Chang pushed further, asking if the visible distance between the two CEOs hurt their credibility in cooperating over AI safety risks. Amodei said trustworthy companies need to set the bar themselves.
“What I think needs to happen is that the trustworthy actors need to get together and put the untrustworthy actors in a position where they kind of have to adopt the same standards,” he said, adding he saw little point in arguing with someone whose vision he does not share.
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He also touched on his OpenAI exit, saying he is at ease letting the market and public decide who is right. “We’ll see who wins in the market and we’ll see who wins in the court of public opinion. I think those things speak louder than any drama about why who left what,” he said.
