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Donald Trump has said he is ordering the US government to stop using Anthropic, saying the AI lab made a “disastrous mistake” in challenging the Pentagon over the military use of its technology.
The president said he would not “ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS!”
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei has faced off against defence secretary Pete Hegseth over how the Pentagon can use the company’s technology in military operations. Hegseth earlier this week said Anthropic had until Friday at 5pm to agree to his demands.
But the president said he would allow a “Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels” potentially allowing time for the two sides to cut a deal.
Anthropic has refused to give the military open-ended permission to use its technology for all lawful purposes, citing concerns about its use in lethal autonomous weapons or for mass domestic surveillance.
“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”, Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday.
Negotiations between the Pentagon and Anthropic became increasingly fraught in the past week.
Amodei, was summoned to Washington for talks on Tuesday, which failed to produce a resolution. On Thursday, Amodei said his company “cannot in good conscience” agree to the US government’s terms.
Emil Michael, under-secretary of defence for research and engineering and a critical figure in negotiations, called Amodei a liar with a “God-complex”.
Michael struck a more conciliatory tone on Friday before the president’s comments. “I offer more talks, so long as they’re in good faith,” he said, adding that Anthropic had “cut off” talks despite the Pentagon making “a lot of concessions” to the AI lab.
Trump’s action against Anthropic is a stark warning to it and other AI groups, including OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk’s xAI, about how far the administrations is willing to go to get companies to acquiesce to its demands.
The Pentagon “decided to make Dario a nonpatriotic villain, to make an example and intimidate the other companies”, said a former senior defence official. “It’s deeply dangerous.”
Though Trump said his administration would “not do business with them again”, he has still given Anthropic a six-month window before his moves against them come into effect. Cutting the company off immediately could hit America’s military operations.
Anthropic’s Claude is the only AI model deployed in classified operations, having been used in the seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro last month. An administration official told the FT that it remained the best model for military use.
The Pentagon has asked other contractors, such as defence giant Lockheed Martin, if and how it uses Anthropic.
The company signed a contract worth up to $200mn with the Pentagon last summer, which accorded with its own acceptable-use policies, including red lines on lethal autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance.
Anthropic had been negotiating with Hegseth’s team over an updated contract for months, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Those negotiations became more heated after the defence department outlined a new strategy in January, including a demand that it be able to use AI models without “usage policy constraints that may limit lawful military applications”, added the person.
Anthropic has argued that AI models are not yet reliable enough for humans to be removed from the “kill chain” and that existing surveillance laws are inadequate to prevent mass surveillance with current tools.
The Pentagon has disputed that version of events, claiming that Anthropic had derailed the talks by pushing for excessive control over military operations.
The Pentagon “has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement. This narrative is fake and being peddled by leftists in the media,” chief spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote on X on Thursday.
“We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions,” he added.