President Donald Trump has directed federal agencies to “immediately cease” working with technology from artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has designated the company a “supply chain risk.”
The Pentagon last July awarded Anthropic along with Google, OpenAI and xAI deals each worth up to $200 million to leverage their generative AI tools to assist with military uses. Additionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) teamed up with Anthropic in August to build a tool that could determine whether knowledge obtained through AI on nuclear weapons is being used for nefarious purposes.
“As directed by President Trump, the Department of Energy is reviewing all existing contracts and uses of Anthropic technology,” an NNSA spokesperson said in an email to the Exchange Monitor. “The Department remains firmly committed to ensuring that the technology we employ serves the public interest, protects America’s energy and national security, and advances our mission.”
The president’s announcement arrived about an hour before a Friday deadline Hegseth had set for Anthropic to agree on unrestricted use of its Claude AI model. The company wanted assurances its technology would not be used to employ weapons, nuclear or conventional, without human involvement or for mass domestic surveillance.
According to the Washington Post, the public standoff came to a climax when Anthropic and the Pentagon debated a hypothetical nuclear attack. At issue is whether the military could use the Claude system to shoot down an intercontinental ballistic missile launched at the United States.
“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS!” Trump wrote in a social media post. “The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY.”
Trump’s post added agencies were allotted a six month phase out from using Anthropic.
Following Trump’s announcement, Hegseth confirmed the decision to designate Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security” and that the department had sought a demand for “full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic.”
“Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic,” Hegseth said via social media.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, said in a statement Thursday his company “cannot in good conscience accede to [the Pentagon’s] request” to drop its guidelines prohibiting the use of AI for fully autonomous lethal weapons and mass surveillance.
Shortly after the announcement the Pentagon would cease work with Anthropic, Sam Altman, CEO of Anthropic’s competitor OpenAI, said on X that OpenAI would work with the Pentagon to deploy models in the Pentagon’s classified network.
“In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome,” Altman said. “AI safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission. Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”