Donald Trump bragged about cutting ties between the U.S. military and Anthropic on Thursday, the same day multiple news reports reported that negotiations between the Pentagon and the AI startup had resumed.
These are among the latest developments in the twisted rift between the U.S. government and AI companies.
“Well, I fired Anthropic. Anthropic is in trouble because I fired them.” [them] Because like the dog, they shouldn’t have done that,” Trump told Politico on Thursday.
Hours later, the Department of Defense officially designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” banning all government contractors from using the company’s technology. This label has never been used for U.S. companies.
“Dow has formally notified Anthropic leadership that the company and its products are considered a supply chain risk, effective immediately,” a Pentagon official told Bloomberg.
However, there were also reports of snow melting at the same time. Negotiations have resumed between the Pentagon and Anthropic over the military’s use of the company’s AI and a contract between the two companies, according to the Financial Times and Bloomberg. The Washington Post reports that Anthropic’s products, including the popular Claude chatbot and coding assistant, are integrated into Palantir’s Maven system, a new and important military intelligence tool used in the recent attack on Iran.
According to Bloomberg, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been discussing the Pentagon contract with Emile Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and a former Uber executive. The New York Times reported that the two strongly disliked each other.
Last week, President Trump ordered the entire federal government to stop using the company’s technology after Anthropic refused to do business with the government, citing concerns that its model could be used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.
According to their respective secretaries, the State and Treasury Departments have already begun to sever ties. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth verbally designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk” last week, and Amodei said Anthropic would sue over the label.
Amodei sent a scathing message to employees last week disparaging the Trump administration and rival Open AI, which late last week jumped into the void left by the government and Anthropic’s dissolution and announced its own military agreement. Amodei called OpenAI CEO Sam Altman “deceptive” and said Altman’s claims that the Pentagon would comply with safeguards were nothing more than “safety theater.” Altman acknowledged in an internal message to employees this week that the company has no control over how the military uses OpenAI’s technology.
Amodei addressed the leaked messages in a statement Thursday.
“We would also like to directly apologize for the internal post that was leaked to the press yesterday. Anthropic did not leak this post nor did we instruct anyone else to do so. It is not in our interest to escalate this situation,” Amodei wrote. “It’s been a difficult day for the company. I apologize for the tone of the post. This post does not reflect my careful or considered views. It was also written six days ago and is an outdated assessment of the current situation.”
Retaliatory blacklisting of a company can result in significant financial harm. Anthropic’s latest round of funding, about $60 billion, is in jeopardy due to a dispute with the Department of Defense, according to Axios. Silicon Valley, including OpenAI, is supporting Anthropic in the fight over supply chain risk designation.
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company’s lawyers reviewed the “supply chain risk” designation and concluded that “Humanity products, including Claude, remain available to our customers, other than the Department of the Army, through platforms such as M365, GitHub, and Microsoft’s AI Foundry.”
Microsoft can continue to work with Anthropic on non-defense-related projects, the spokesperson added.
As the Secretary of Defense pledges punitive action against Anthropic, he also announced a contract with OpenAI to use the company’s technology for military operations on sensitive networks. Questions about the timing and ethics led to a backlash that propelled Claude’s app to the top of the US download charts. The next day, Altman said he was amending the agreement with the department and acknowledged that his company’s actions appeared “opportunistic and sloppy.”
