Anthropic boss rejects Pentagon demand as Trump orders agencies to stop using the company
Anthropic says it will not yield in a public standoff with the US Department of Defense over how its artificial intelligence is used, a dispute that has escalated into an order from President Donald Trump for federal agencies to stop using the company’s tools. The fight centers on assurances about Claude and whether the technology could be used for mass domestic surveillance or in fully autonomous weapons.
Dario Amodei’s firm refusal after meeting with Pete Hegseth
Chief executive Dario Amodei said on Thursday that his company would rather not work with the Pentagon than agree to uses of its technology that may "undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. " His remarks came two days after a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, at which the department pressed Anthropic to accept "any lawful use" of its tools and threatened to remove the company from the defence supply chain.
Amodei added: "These threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request. " He also said that "Should the Department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider. "
Core concerns: Claude, mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons
At the heart of the dispute are two potential uses of Claude listed by Anthropic as off-limits: "Mass domestic surveillance" and "Fully autonomous weapons. " Amodei said such use cases "have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now. " The Department of War is a secondary name for the Defense Department under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in September.
Pentagon threats: Defense Production Act and supply-chain risk label
The Pentagon has threatened a range of measures if Anthropic does not comply. Secretary Hegseth warned he could invoke the Defense Production Act to require compliance, and he also threatened to designate the company a "supply chain risk, " meaning it would be judged not secure enough for government use. The Defense Production Act gives a US president authority to deem a company or product so important that the government can require it to meet defence needs.
A former DoD official who asked not to be named called Hegseth's grounds for those measures "extremely flimsy. " A representative of the Defense Department could not be reached for comment.
Public escalation: Trump orders federal agencies to stop using the company
President Donald Trump directed every federal agency to immediately cease work with Anthropic, while giving the Department of Defense a six-month phaseout for systems that already use the company's products. In a public post he wrote: "I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!" He also called the company "left-wing nut jobs" and said they had made a mistake trying to strong-arm the Pentagon.
Trump's message arrived just over an hour before the Pentagon's deadline for Anthropic to allow unrestricted military use of its AI or face consequences, and nearly 24 hours after Amodei said his company "cannot in good conscience accede" to the Defense Department's demands. The president warned he would use "the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow" if Anthropic did not assist with the phaseout.
Company posture, contracts and industry stakes
The weeks-long feud has put pressure on the San Francisco-based startup as it competes for business with government and private customers. Spokespeople for anthropic, which holds a $200m contract with the Pentagon, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, even as an Anthropic spokeswoman said the company had received updated contract wording from the DoD on Wednesday night that represented "virtually no progress on preventing Claude's use for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons. " She said "New language framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will, " and added that "Despite [the Department of War's] recent public statements, these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months. "
The company has said it was the first frontier AI lab to put its models on classified networks through a cloud provider and the first to build customised models for national security customers. Its product Claude is in use across the intelligence community and armed services. The setback comes as Anthropic raced to win contracts ahead of a widely expected initial public offering, and the company has said it has not finalised an IPO decision.
Voices inside the Pentagon and Washington
Emil Michael, the US Undersecretary for Defense, launched a public attack on Amodei, writing that the executive "wants nothing more than to try to personally control the US Military and is ok putting our nation's safety at risk. " In an interview, Michael said: "At some level, you have to trust your military to do the right thing, " and argued that the uses of AI Anthropic fears are already barred by law and by Pentagon policies. He added: "We do have to be prepared for what China is doing. "
Separately, US Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat and vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, criticized the president's directive.
