The Pentagon as seen from an airplane in Washington, Monday, February 2, 2026.
Julia Demarie Nikinson/Associated Press
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Julia Demarie Nikinson/Associated Press
President Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the U.S. government will stop using AI company Anthropic products.
The decision follows a dispute between Anthropic and the Department of Defense over whether the company’s tools can be prohibited from being used for mass surveillance of American citizens or for the development of autonomous weapons systems.
“The left-wing lunatics at Anthropic made a disastrous mistake in trying to superpower the Department of the Army and force it to follow the Code of Service instead of the Constitution,” Trump said in a post. “Therefore, I am directing all federal agencies of the United States Government to immediately stop using Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it. We don’t want it. We will never do business with them again!”
He said Anthropic’s products would be phased out over a six-month period.
The announcement came about an hour before the deadline set by the Pentagon, which had asked Antropic to withdraw.
And it comes as at least one other AI company has said it has similar concerns about military uses of AI. Earlier in the day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Anthropic shares the “red lines” set by rival Anthropic that limit how the military uses its AI models, as Anthropic’s feud with the Department of Defense intensifies.
The Department of Defense has given Anthropic a deadline of 5:01 p.m. ET today to lift restrictions on its AI model, Claude, for use in domestic mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon has said it does not intend to use AI in that way, but has asked AI companies to allow their models to be used “for all lawful purposes.”
The government also threatened to invoke the Korean War-era Defense Production Act (DPA) to force Anthropic to license its tools, while also classifying Anthropic as a “supply chain risk” and warning that it could be blacklisted from lucrative government contracts. President Trump did not mention either threat in his Truth Social post.
Mr. Altman weighed in on the conflict between Anthropic and the Pentagon, which could complicate the Pentagon’s succession efforts if Anthropic makes good on its threat to terminate the contract. OpenAI also has contracts with the Department of Defense, along with Google, xAI, and Anthropic, but Anthropic was the first to be approved for use on classified systems.
“Personally, I don’t think the Department of Defense should threaten DPA against these companies,” Altman said in an interview on CNBC Friday morning. He said he believes it is important for companies to cooperate with the military “as long as they comply with legal protections” and on “some red lines that we share with Anthropic and that other companies have agreed to on their own.”
“Despite our differences with Anthropic, I pretty much trust them as a company and I think they really care about safety and I’m glad they’re supporting our warfighters,” Altman added. “I don’t know what will happen next.”
In an internal memo sent to staff Thursday night, Altman said he is seeking to negotiate an agreement with the Pentagon to deploy the model on classified systems with exemptions that would prevent OpenAI from being used for surveillance purposes in the United States or powering autonomous weapons without human approval, according to a person familiar with the message who was not authorized to speak publicly. of wall street journal Altman’s memo was first reported to staff.
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on Altman’s remarks.
Whether AI companies can set limits on how the government uses their technology has emerged as a major point of contention between Anthropic and the Trump administration in recent months.
On Thursday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the company would not be daunted by the Pentagon’s threats over the contract. “We cannot in good conscience comply with their demands,” he said in a lengthy statement.
“Antropic understands that military decisions are made by the Department of the Army, not private companies. We have never objected to specific military operations, nor have we sought to limit the use of technology in military operations.” For this purpose However, he added that the use of domestic mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons is “far beyond what today’s technology can safely and reliably implement.”
Emile Michael, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for research and engineering, fired back at X’s post, accusing Amodei of lying and having a “god complex.”
“He wants nothing more than to seek personal control of the U.S. military, and he is comfortable putting our nation’s security at risk,” Michael wrote. “@DeptofWar will always abide by the law, but we will not bow to the whims of commercial technology companies,” he wrote.
In an interview with CBS News, Michael said that federal law and Department of Defense policy already prohibit the use of AI in domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons.
“At some level, you have to trust the military to do the right thing,” he said.
Independent experts say the conflict is highly unusual in the world of Pentagon contracting.
“This is clearly different,” said Jerry McGinn, director of the Industrial Infrastructure Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, D.C. He noted that Pentagon contractors typically cannot tell the agency how their products and services will be used. “Otherwise, you’ll be negotiating use cases contract by contract, and that’s not a reasonable expectation.”
At the same time, McGinn points out that artificial intelligence is a new and largely untested technology. “This is a very unusual and very public battle,” he said. “I think this reflects the nature of AI.”
