“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!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
The move followed weeks of dispute between the Pentagon and the San Francisco-based AI startup over concerns about how the military deploys artificial intelligence in warfare.
Anthropic, which has a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense, did not respond to a request for comment.
President Trump’s directive is not as strong as the Pentagon’s previous threat to invoke the Defense Production Act to force compliance. Defense officials were also considering designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk, a label previously applied to companies with ties to foreign adversaries.
However, President Trump warned that he would take further action if Anthropic did not cooperate during the phase-out period, saying he would “use the full power of the President” to ensure compliance, with “significant civil and criminal consequences” if necessary.
Concerns about weapons and surveillance
The decision comes as Anthropic is aggressively competing to sell advanced AI systems to commercial and government customers, particularly in the national security field, ahead of a widely anticipated initial public offering. The company said it has not made a final decision on an initial public offering.
The controversy also highlighted tensions over guardrails for military AI use. Anthropic wants assurances that its models will not be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance. The Department of Defense said it is not interested in these applications.
Anthropic is the first frontier AI lab to deploy models on classified networks via Amazon Web Services, and the first to build customized models for national security clients, according to the company. Its Claude systems are used across the intelligence community and branches of the military.
The conflict reflects previous friction between Silicon Valley and Washington. In 2018, Google employees protested the Pentagon’s use of AI to analyze drone footage, and the company withdrew from the project. Since then, major technology companies such as Amazon and Microsoft have expanded their defense efforts, and several CEOs last year pledged to cooperate with the Trump administration.
Concerns about so-called “killer robots” continue to provoke human rights and technology activists, even as the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts advance the deployment of automated systems on the battlefield.
