Key Takeaways Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, claimed the movement to slow AI development centers on securing “profitability at $1 trillion mcap” Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, rele
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko challenged prominent AI executives this week following public endorsements from Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Elon Musk regarding a proposed deceleration of AI advancement.
Yakovenko delivered a terse response on X, posting just four words: “Profitability at $1 trillion mcap.” His statement referenced no particular organization and included no supporting financial evidence.
Profitability at $1t mcap https://t.co/wEpIG4cJ9N
— toly
(@toly) September 13, 2026
The implication was unmistakable. Yakovenko suggested the campaign to decelerate AI development prioritizes protecting dominant market positions of major players as they approach trillion-dollar market capitalizations rather than genuine safety considerations.
In a subsequent post, Yakovenko mentioned instructing his Codex to reduce token usage, seemingly ridiculing the concept of an artificial halt to AI advancement.
In his essay “We Must Pace the Frontier,” Amodei advocated for decelerating the pace of AI capability expansion rather than halting research entirely.
The framework consists of three components. Initially, Anthropic would grant external evaluators continuous access comparable to what internal safety teams receive. Amodei cited METR, the Model Evaluation and Threat Research organization, as a potential partner.
The second component involves coordination among leading AI firms in democratic nations to establish unified safety standards. Amodei recognized potential antitrust issues and suggested limited government authorization might be necessary.
The final element addresses global cooperation, potentially including arrangements with China. These could span from restrictions on AI-enhanced weaponry to oversight of automated model enhancement processes.
On September 12, Altman publicly supported Amodei’s framework, stating “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.” He committed to incorporating independent evaluators with full employee access and promised additional details forthcoming from OpenAI.
Musk’s endorsement was succinct. According to Reuters, he shared Amodei’s essay with the comment “Dario is right,” without elaborating on which aspects he supported.
David Sacks, who previously served as White House AI and crypto adviser, contended that Anthropic and OpenAI can voluntarily reduce their development pace without imposing regulatory burdens on the broader industry.
He characterized the two firms as a “duopoly on frontier intelligence” and warned that centralized regulation could devastate smaller startups and open-source initiatives that have been narrowing the performance gap with industry leaders.
Sacks further argued that international AI agreements face low probability of success since China would likely refuse participation. He cautioned that constraining American laboratories could constitute voluntary technological disadvantage.
Neither Anthropic nor OpenAI has issued direct responses to the objections raised by Yakovenko or Sacks.
Financial markets demonstrated no significant concern. Industry analysts observed that reducing frontier model development speed does not necessarily correlate with decreased overall AI infrastructure investment.
As of September 13, Anthropic has pledged to implement external evaluation procedures but has not announced an implementation timeline or designated specific evaluators for the initiative.
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