Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week questioned leading tech CEOs about the security of artificial intelligence models and how to respond to cyber attacks before Anthropic released its new Mythos model, CNBC has learned.

The meeting occurred over the phone, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the meeting was private.

The person said that Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, xAI’s Elon Musk, Google‘s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Microsoft‘s Satya Nadella, CrowdStrike‘s George Kurtz and Palo Alto Networks‘ Nikesh Arora also participated.

The tech CEOs met to discuss the security posture of large language models and safe deployment, according to the person. Officials also discussed how to respond if models scale in favor of attackers, they added.

An Anthropic official declined to comment on the meeting, but told CNBC on Friday that the company has been in touch with senior officials about cybersecurity in recent weeks and has made itself available to support “the government’s own testing and evaluation of the technology.”

“Prior to any external release, Anthropic briefed senior officials across the U.S. government on Mythos Preview’s full capabilities, including both its offensive and defensive cyber applications,” the official said. “Bringing government into the loop early — on what the model can do, where the risks are, and how we’re managing them — was a priority from the start.”

OpenAI and CrowdStrike declined to comment on the meeting. The White House and the other companies have not responded to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Anthropic rolled out its Mythos AI model to a limited group of companies on Tuesday as it assesses ways to prevent hackers from using it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike were among the initial launch partners.

Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell this week called a surprise meeting with the heads of the biggest U.S. banks to address the potential threat of Mythos, signaling further concern from the Trump administration about advanced cyber tools.

It was also a sign that Anthropic is still part of the conversation about AI in the White House, as President Donald Trump seeks to strip the startup’s Claude platform from federal agencies.

Anthropic’s legal challenge to the Department of Defense supply chain risk designation is still playing out in court after two opposing rulings on opposite sides of the country.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied the company’s request to temporarily block the blacklisting, weeks after a federal judge in San Francisco granted Anthropic’s request for a preliminary injunction in another legal challenge.

With the opposing rulings, Anthropic remains blocked from DOD contracts but can keep working with other federal agencies while the cases play out.

— CNBC’s Kate Rooney contributed to this article.

Palo Alto Networks beat Wall Street’s fiscal second-quarter estimates after the bell on Tuesday but shares fell 7% on disappointing guidance.

Here’s how the company did versus LSEG estimates:

• Earnings per share: $1.03 per share excluding items vs. 94 cents expected
• Revenue: $2.59 billion vs. $2.58 billion expected

The cybersecurity company forecasted lackluster earnings for the fiscal third quarter in the range of 78 cents and 80 cents, falling short of an estimate of 92 cents from LSEG.

Revenue is expected to hit $2.94 billion to $2.95 billion, topping a $2.60 billion estimate.

Revenue grew 15% from $2.3 billion a year ago, the company said. Net income totaled $432 million, or 61 cents per share, up from $267 million, or 38 cents per share a year ago.

Palo Alto also said on Tuesday that it’s buying Israeli cybersecurity startup Koi to secure AI agents as rising artificial intelligence innovation fuels more sophisticated cyberattacks. The company has bet big on AI tools, and recently launched AI agents to help customers automate certain security responses.

The company is also in the midst of a significant spending spree as CEO Nikesh Arora transforms Palo Alto into a hub for all things cybersecurity. Since joining the company in 2018, he’s overseen more than 20 acquisitions.

Earlier this month, the Santa Clara, California-based company closed its biggest acquisition ever, paying $25 billion for Israeli identity security company CyberArk. In January, it closed the more than $3 billion purchase of cloud observability platform Chronosphere.

“We saw continued strength in platformizations, a trend that is accelerating due to AI – customers are keen to both modernize and normalize their cybersecurity stack, aligning them to our approach,” Arora wrote in a release.

Remaining performance obligations, which track the value of contracts to be delivered to customers, totaled $16 billion and topped a StreetAccount estimate of $15.78 billion. Annual recurring revenue rose 33% to $6.33 billion.

Palo Alto shares have slumped 11% year to date.

Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora addressed the recent downdraft in software stocks, telling analysts in an earnings call that artificial intelligence won’t replace cybersecurity “anytime soon.”

“I’m still confused why the market is treating AI as a threat to at least cybersecurity,” he said Tuesday. “I can’t speak for all of software, but one thing we’re definitely seeing is that customers have figured out that they need to drive more consistency in their security stack to be able to respond faster using AI.”

Shares sank 8% Wednesday following the cybersecurity company’s fiscal second-quarter results, which topped Wall Street estimates. However, third-quarter earnings guidance fell short of expectations.

The rise of new AI tools creating enterprise workflows or websites in a matter of seconds has intensified a selloff in software stocks in recent weeks.

These new tools, from the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI, have left investors fretting over whether AI will permanently disrupt their business models.

So far this year, the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF has slumped more than 23%. Palo Alto Networks has dropped 11% year to date and 21% over the last year.

But Arora believes AI is far from displacing the security products.

“It’s not a secret,” he said. “Every one of us is working hard. Almost every AI, every security product has some version of a copilot that now runs in tandem with the product.”

Palo Alto has been betting big on AI in recent months and launched a suite of new agentic tools in the fourth quarter.

The company has also invested heavily in new acquisitions to scale cybersecurity capabilities for customers in the age of sophisticated AI.

Earlier this month, the company closed its massive $25 billion acquisition of identity security company CyberArk and completed its purchase of AI observability platform Chronosphere in January. Palo Alto announced on Tuesday that it’s buying Israeli cybersecurity startup Koi.

“These investments are a direct response to the inflections we see taking shape in the market,” Arora told analysts. “While it’s still early, the initial feedback from our customers has been very encouraging. We believe we’re now entering the next phase of AI adoption.”

Palo Alto Networks beat Wall Street’s fiscal first-quarter estimates after the bell on Wednesday and announced plans to buy cloud observability platform Chronosphere for $3.35 billion.

The stock fell about 3%.

Here’s how the company did versus LSEG estimates:

• Earnings per share: 93 cents adjusted vs. 89 cents expected
• Revenue: $2.47 billion vs. $2.46 billion expected

Revenues grew 16% from $2.1 billion a year ago. Net income fell to $334 million, or 47 cents per share, from $351 million, or 49 cents per share in the year-ago period.

Palo Alto’s Chronosphere deal is slated to close in the second half of its fiscal 2026. The cybersecurity provider is also in the process of buying Israeli identity security firm CyberArk for $25 billion under CEO Nikesh Arora‘s acquisition spree.

He told investors in an earnings call that Palo Alto is making this simultaneous acquisition to address the fast-moving AI cycle.

“This large surge towards building AI compute is causing a lot of the AI players to think about newer models for software stacks and infrastructure stacks in the future,” he said.

Palo Alto guided for revenues between $2.57 billion and $2.59 billion in the second quarter, the midpoint of which was in line with a $2.58 billion estimate. For the full year, the company expects $10.50 billion to $10.54 billion, versus a $10.51 billion estimate.

Capital expenditures during the period were much higher than expectations at $84 million. StreetAccount expected $58.1 million. Remaining purchase obligations, which tracks backlog, grew to $15.5 billion and topped a $15.43 billion estimate.

The rise of artificial intelligence has also stirred up increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks and contributed to tools for customers. The Santa Clara, California-based company has infused AI into its tools and launched automated AI agents to help fend off attacks in October.