Move follows weeks of tension between Pentagon and Anthropic over AI guardrails.
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump Ends Federal Use of Anthropic’s AI as Pentagon Labels It Security Risk
The federal government will stop working with Anthropic and designate the artificial intelligence company a supply-chain risk, a dramatic escalation of the government’s clash with the company over how its technology can be used by the Pentagon.
“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!” President Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The Defense Department and other agencies using Anthropic’s Claude models will have a six-month phaseout period, he said, adding that there would be civil and criminal consequences if the company isn’t helpful during the transition.
Trump’s announcement came shortly before the Pentagon’s Friday afternoon deadline for Anthropic to agree to let the military use its models in all lawful-use cases, a concession the company had refused to make. “We cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei said on Thursday.
Trump and administration officials have attacked the company for that stance, while also taking exception to its push for AI regulations and its links to organizations that are big Democratic donors.
Shortly after the deadline, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on X that he is designating the company a supply-chain risk, impairing its ability to work with other government contractors.
Hegseth had previously threatened the move. The designation is normally used for companies from foreign adversaries like China that pose security threats.
Depending how aggressively the Defense Department enforces the restriction, it could mean that other companies working with the Pentagon will have to show that they don’t use Claude at all, a threat that could hit swaths of Anthropic’s business. “America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech,” Hegseth said in his post.
AI and security experts said the administration’s actions could have a chilling effect for other businesses considering working with the Pentagon or other agencies.
“This is a dark day in the history of American AI. The message sent to the business community and to countries around the world could not be worse,” said Dean Ball, a former Trump administration AI adviser who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, a center-right think tank. He had called for the administration not to use the supply-chain risk designation.
Ball said that Anthropic partners and investors including Nvidia, Amazon and Google might have to divest from the company or stop working with it if they want to continue working with the Pentagon. Some legal analysts have said it only applies to the work companies do with the military, not all private-sector business.
“It basically says to any startup that’s contemplating dipping its toe in the Defense Department water that they’re going to grab your ankle and pull you all the way in,” said Gregory Allen, a senior adviser focused on AI at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Allen, who previously worked on the Defense Department’s AI strategy, called the move “completely absurd.”
“This is going to be a huge deterrent to companies thinking about serving the defense industry,” he said.
Elon Musk’s xAI is currently the only AI company besides Anthropic with approval to be used in classified settings, but government agencies have raised concerns about the reliability of its Grok model and how quickly it can be substituted after Claude was embedded in the Pentagon for many months.
China Wins the Pentagon-Anthropic Brawl
The WSJ editorial board says China Wins the Pentagon-Anthropic Brawl
Trump goes nuclear on the AI firm, in a needless display of brute government punishment.
President Trump on Friday banned Anthropic and its AI products from all government contracts, and the Communists must be cheering in Beijing. The Administration is making what is a modest dispute over the military uses of AI into a self-destructive show of brute political force that will hurt the U.S. military and the rest of the government.
Anthropic’s models were the first cutting-edge AI deployed on classified networks in the U.S. government. The Pentagon prefers a contract to use the tools for “any lawful use,” as outlined in its AI strategy. Anthropic took exception. The company doesn’t want its models deployed for “mass domestic surveillance,” nor used in fully autonomous weapons that strike without a human in the decision loop.
The Pentagon is within its rights to stop working with the company. The missions of the U.S. military are the responsibility of elected and politically accountable officials. It’s an imperfect analogy, but a company can’t sell the U.S. military a missile and then haggle about acceptable targets.
That’s the principle at issue, not whether the Pentagon can “mass surveil” U.S. citizens, which nobody supports and isn’t happening. The employment of fully autonomous weapons presents real ethical quandaries, though the technology isn’t ready for that. Both are questions for Defense Department practices and Congress, not contracts. Anthropic could have made a concession without giving up its larger principles.
But instead of wishing Anthropic the best in its future endeavors and accepting potentially inferior products, the President has gone nuclear. Mr. Trump thundered online on Friday that he is directing “EVERY Federal Agency” to “IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology,” with six months to phase out the tech at the Pentagon.
This will hurt Anthropic, but it may also damage U.S. defenses. The company’s Claude model and AI tools are on the front line of U.S. innovation, and nothing is more important for U.S. troops than having the battlefield edge in technology.
Elon Musk belly-flopped into the dispute this week by posting that “Anthropic hates Western Civilization,” and no doubt he’s pleased that Mr. Trump’s Anthropic ban may create an opening for his Grok AI to get the contracts. But Anthropic doesn’t lack for patriotism. The company says it has left revenue on the table by cutting off firms linked to the Chinese Communist Party. It’s no small matter that a technology company has been willing to help the U.S. military in combat, a change from a decade ago when most of Silicon Valley viewed Pentagon contracts as complicity in imperialism.
Mr. Trump derided Anthropic as “some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company.” But the bigger picture before the meltdown was that an AI company with a progressive reputation and the Trump Pentagon largely agreed that America has to be defended with premiere technology. The Pentagon needs all the AI help in can get as the technology races ahead and China isn’t far behind. The People’s Liberation Army is the winner of the Anthropic ban.
Anthropic Says No
Hegseth Strikes Again
Trump Destroys AI Companies
Trump on Truth Social
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military.
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.
Therefore, 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! There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels. Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow.
WE will decide the fate of our Country — NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Question of the Day
Exactly how did Anthropic violate the Constitution, as Trump claimed?
Oh wait, I get it. Trump considers himself the Constitution.
The unmistakable message is again repeated. Never disagree with Trump on anything.
This post originated on MishTalk.Com
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