The architect of the UK government’s AI strategy has joined the US startup Anthropic in a senior role a year after stepping down from his Downing Street post. Matt Clifford, a successful tech investor, was appointed as AI opportunities adviser by Keir Starmer last year but resigned from the unpaid role six months later for personal reasons. His move to the company behind the Claude chatbot has raised concern, with the head of the House of Commons science, innovation and technology committee, Chi Onwurah, saying that his decision to remain as chair of the government-backed Aria funding body represented a “clear conflict of interest”.
Clifford will be Anthropic’s managing director, international affairs, and will lead the company’s engagement with governments outside the US including in the UK, Europe, Asia-Pacific and India. Anthropic said Clifford would remain as the chair of Aria, the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, which funds “moonshot” science and tech projects. He will also maintain his chair role at Entrepreneurs First, the tech venture capital firm he co-founded.
He was appointed chair of Aria in 2022. Anthropic said Clifford would step back from any matter involving the company at Aria. But Onwurah said the roles clashed and she called on the AI minister, Kanishka Narayan, to intervene.
Anthropic said its commercial relationship with Aria was handled by a separate team to Clifford’s and he did not make procurement or programme-level spending decision at Aria anyway. The UK government has been approached for comment. Several senior politicians have taken roles at Silicon Valley firms in recent years.
The former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg took a senior post at Meta in 2018. Last year the former prime minister Rishi Sunak took advisory roles at Microsoft and Anthropic, and the ex-chancellor George Osborne joined OpenAI. Commenting on his role at Anthropic, Clifford said the most important decisions about AI would be made by companies and governments together.
He said: “Countries everywhere want real agency over how this technology is built and used, and my job is to make Anthropic a genuine partner in that – in Europe, Asia and beyond.” Anthropic is preparing for a stock exchange flotation that could value the business at $2tn (£1.5tn). Tom Brake, the chief executive of Unlock Democracy, a not-for-profit campaign group, said the move showed that “the revolving door is a problem for advisers as much as it is for ministers”. Clifford began his tech career in the private sector.
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