President Donald Trump said Friday he would bar the AI company Anthropic from the federal government after the company refused to compromise on how the U.S. military uses its technology.
But because Anthropic is one of the few AI companies allowed to operate in classified environments, he is giving the Pentagon a six-month period to phase out Anthropic’s technology.
In a post on Truth Social, President Trump called Anthrop “woke” and “leftist” and accused him of endangering the military and endangering national security by refusing to comply with the Pentagon’s demands.
“Therefore, I direct all federal agencies of the U.S. government to immediately cease their use of Anthropic’s technology,” he wrote. “We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and we won’t do business with them again! There will be a six-month phase-out period for government agencies like the Department of the Army that use Anthropic’s products at various levels.”
Trump added that if Anthropic doesn’t comply, “I will use the full power of the President to make them comply.”
The San Francisco startup had refused to allow users to deploy its Claude model for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, while the Pentagon had demanded the right to use the technology in all lawful cases.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threatened to cancel Anthropic’s $200 million contract with the U.S. military or label the company a supply chain risk.
On Friday, he said he would designate the company as a “supply chain risk to national security.” This would prevent companies doing business with the Department of Defense from using Anthropic’s technology, putting the AI company in a category typically applied to companies with ties to foreign adversaries such as China and Russia.
Hegseth added that the Pentagon’s six-month phase-out period will allow for a “seamless transition to a better, more patriotic service.”
Previously, he also mentioned the possibility of invoking the Defense Production Act to force Anthropic to deliver an unrestricted version of the Claude on national security grounds.
“These threats do not change our position. We cannot in good conscience comply with their demands,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a letter Thursday.
In response, Emile Michael, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for research and engineering, called Amodei a “liar” with a “God complex” and accused the CEO of wanting “personal control over the U.S. military” in his posts to X.
The Pentagon has publicly stated that it has no intention of conducting mass surveillance or excluding humans from determining weapons targets, but the dispute may come down to how each side actually defines “autonomy” or “surveillance.”
Anthropic was the only AI company cleared for use in classified environments until Elon Musk’s xAI agreed with the Department of Defense to use AI in legal situations. Google and OpenAI are being used in an unclassified setting, but are discussing classified status with the Department of Defense.
But even as defense officials seek to reduce dependence on humanity, the Pentagon faces a Silicon Valley revolt.
Axios said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees in a memo Thursday that the company plans to impose similar restrictions on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance as Anthropic.
Also on Thursday, more than 100 Google employees sent a letter to Jeff Dean, the company’s chief scientist, asking for similar restrictions on how the U.S. military uses the company’s Gemini AI model. New York Times.
Additionally, employees of other hyperscalers, including Microsoft and Amazon, have called on executives to block the Pentagon’s unrestricted use of their AI products.
