Anthropic refuses Pentagon demand as Trump orders federal agencies to cut ties
anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei said the company will not accept Pentagon demands that would allow unrestricted military uses of its AI, and President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to immediately stop using the firm’s technology as the dispute escalated.
Meeting with Defense chief ended with a supply-chain threat
Amodei spoke on Thursday, two days after a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that centered on Pentagon demands that Anthropic accept "any lawful use" of its tools, a fight that ended with a threat to remove the company from the Department of Defense supply chain.
CEO rejects language he says would weaken safeguards
Amodei said he would rather not work with the Pentagon than agree to uses of the company’s AI that may "undermine, rather than defend, democratic values, " adding, "These threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request. " He identified the disputed potential uses as "Mass domestic surveillance" and "Fully autonomous weapons, " and 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 US President Donald Trump in September.
Anthropic spokeswoman says contract rewrite "virtually no progress"
An Anthropic spokeswoman said the company received updated contract wording from the DoD on Wednesday night but that it 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 "these narrow safeguards have been the crux of our negotiations for months. " Amodei also warned, "Should the Department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider. "
Trump orders agencies to stop using Anthropic and sets a six-month DoD phaseout
On Friday, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: "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 ordered an immediate halt by most agencies and gave the Department of Defense a six-month phaseout for technology already embedded in military platforms, calling Anthropic "left-wing nut jobs" and warning he would use "the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow" if the company did not cooperate with the phaseout.
Officials clash over legal tools and national security risks
A Pentagon official previously said Hegseth would ensure the Defense Production Act was invoked if Anthropic did not comply; that act gives a president authority to require a company meet defense needs. Hegseth also threatened to label Anthropic a "supply chain risk, " a designation that would declare the company not secure enough for government use. Emil Michael, the US Undersecretary for Defense, wrote on X on Thursday night that Amodei "wants nothing more than to try to personally control the US Military and is ok putting our nation's safety at risk. " In a CBS News interview, Michael said, "At some level, you have to trust your military to do the right thing, " argued that the uses Anthropic fears are barred by law and Pentagon policy, and added, "We do have to be prepared for what China is doing. " A former DoD official who asked not to be named called Hegseth's grounds for either measure "extremely flimsy. " A representative of the Defense Department could not be reached for comment.
Business stakes: contracts, Claude, and political fallout
Spokespeople for anthropic, which has a $200m contract with the Pentagon, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The dispute comes as Anthropic sought business and government customers ahead of a widely expected initial public offering, a decision the company has said it has not finalized. The company has said it was the first frontier AI lab to place models on classified networks Amazon. com and the first to build customised models for national security customers, and that its product Claude is in use across the intelligence community and armed services. US Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat and vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, criticized the president's action.
Trump's announcement arrived just over an hour before a Pentagon 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. If the Department moves to offboard the company, Amodei has pledged to "enable a smooth transition to another provider. "
The next confirmed milestones are the six-month phaseout window for Department of Defense systems named by the president and any formal steps the Pentagon takes on invoking the Defense Production Act or declaring a supply-chain risk; officials on both sides have signaled they will pursue those options.
