(Bloomberg) – OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) has agreed to deploy its own artificial intelligence models within the Pentagon’s sensitive networks after rival Anthropic PBC (ANTH.PVT) fractured its relationship with the Pentagon over concerns over surveillance and autonomous weapons.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said late Friday that the company had reached an agreement with the department that reflects the company’s principles on prohibiting “human responsibility for domestic mass surveillance and the use of force, including autonomous weapons systems.” Altman said in a post on social media platform
Most Read Articles on Bloomberg
OpenAI declined to comment on whether its services for the sector will replace work previously performed by Anthropic. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday night.
Just hours earlier, the Pentagon declared Anthropic at supply chain risk, a move that could have serious implications for the company’s business and intensified a feud between the artificial intelligence startup and defense officials over safeguards for its technology. Less than a day after Altman posted about the deal, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States had launched airstrikes on Iran alongside Israel and said a “massive” operation was underway to deny Tehran access to its nuclear weapons.
Anthropic stipulates that its products may not be used to monitor or attack U.S. personnel without human involvement, but said Friday that “no threat or reprimand from the Department of the Army will change our position.” The company has been in the spotlight in a number of ways in recent weeks. The company’s push to expand AI products for health care, finance and law firms has triggered a selloff in everything from software to financial services to cybersecurity stocks as investors worry the products will disrupt those businesses.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon presented terms to Anthropic that incorporated the company’s proposed language regarding surveillance and autonomy, according to a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. But in Anthropic’s opinion, it did not go far enough to ensure that authorities would not lift those restrictions if they deemed it necessary, the people said.
OpenAI’s agreement with the Department of Defense threatens to widen the rift between the Trump administration and Anthropic. Anthropic has gained strong support for its stance in Silicon Valley, where tech workers have rallied to the company’s side and encouraged other big tech companies, including Amazon.com and Microsoft, to follow suit.
Altman addressed some of the issues of surveillance and autonomous weapons in his post, saying the Pentagon agreed to those principles and reflected them in the agreement with OpenAI, calling on the Pentagon to “offer the same terms to all AI companies, which, in our opinion, everyone should be willing to accept.”
Photographer: Samyukta Lakshmi/Bloomberg
In a post to X, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth outlined a six-month period for Anthropic to hand over its AI services to another provider. “America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech,” Hegseth wrote. “This decision is final.” His post came shortly after Trump wrote on social media that he would order federal agencies to eliminate Anthropic.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei worked at OpenAI before leaving in 2020. One reason for this was concerns that the startup was prioritizing commercialization and speed over safety. OpenAI started as a nonprofit company, but last year it transformed into a traditional for-profit company. The company initially prohibited the use of its technology for military applications, but updated its policy to allow such uses in 2024. The company has also removed the word “safely” from its mission statement, saying its goal is now to “ensure that artificial general intelligence (AI systems that are generally smarter than humans) benefit all humanity.”
Both Anthropic and OpenAI are targeting initial public offerings as early as this year to capitalize on investor enthusiasm for AI and are becoming increasingly focused on revenue.
Earlier Friday, OpenAI announced it had raised $110 billion in a deal that values the startup at $730 billion. This is the ChatGPT maker’s largest funding round to date and adds to its costly efforts to secure more computing power and talent for AI development. Anthropic raised $30 billion in a funding round earlier this month from some of the same investors as OpenAI.
Mr. Amodei and Mr. Altman have clashed publicly for years. Most recently, during the AI Summit in New Delhi this month, the two men ended up standing next to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, conspicuously not holding hands while everyone else on stage was holding hands.
