Anthropic named Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar its first chief global affairs officer on Tuesday, as the developer of AI models called Claude navigates policy challenges and changing regulation. Cuéllar will report to Anthropic President Daniela Amodei and work from the startup’s San Francisco headquarters, managing relationships with the U.S. government and countries where Anthropic is expanding. A former special assistant in Barack Obama’s White House, Cuéllar is tasked with finding common ground with Donald Trump’s Republican administration, which at points blacklisted and ordered controls around Anthropic’s AI this year. Cuéllar, who goes by Tino, has served on Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust since January and is stepping down from that role to join the company. His experience leading the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace until July included co-chairing a task force on U.S. national security and nuclear proliferation. A 2025 study co-led by Cuéllar informed the passage of SB 53, a California law protecting AI whistleblowers, requiring high-revenue developers to report on standards and incidents, and including a maximum $1 million fine per violation; Anthropic endorsed the bill. The former California Supreme Court justice said policymakers were realizing AI’s development and governance had reached an “inflection point.” Oren Cass, founder of the conservative think tank American Compass, called Cuéllar “open-minded” to