Sam Altman announces OpenAI contract with Department of the Army for AI deployment

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Friday that the company has reached an agreement with the Department of the Army to deploy its artificial intelligence models on its classified networks, just hours after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to phase out rival Anthropic.

In a post on X, Altman said he has been in discussions with the Pentagon, which he said has “demonstrated a deep respect for security and a desire to work together to achieve the best possible outcome.”

“AI safety and broad distribution of benefits are core to our mission,” he said. “Two of our most important security principles are the prohibition of domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including autonomous weapons systems. The DoW agrees with these principles and reflects them in our laws and policies, and we have included them in our agreements.”

The agreement comes after President Trump directed all federal agencies to halt the use of human technology, intensifying conflicts over how artificial intelligence should be used in military operations.

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In a post on Truth Social, President Trump said there will be a six-month phase-out period for government agencies, including the Department of the Army.

“Humanity had better get their act together and work together during this phase-out period, or I will use the full power of the President to subdue them and face serious civil and criminal consequences,” he wrote.

Army Secretary Pete Hegseth later said he was directing the department to designate Anthropic as a “supply chain risk to national security.”

“Effective immediately, any contractor, supplier, or partner doing business with the U.S. military may not engage in any commercial activity with Anthropic,” he added. “Anthropic will continue to provide its services to the Department of the Army for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better, more patriotic service.”

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had rejected a request from the Department of the Army to allow the company’s AI to be used for “any lawful purpose,” citing concerns about “domestic mass surveillance” and “fully autonomous weapons.”

Anthropic told Fox News Digital on Friday that Hegseth’s designation of the company as a supply chain risk “resulted from months of negotiations stalling over two exceptions we requested for the lawful use of our AI model, Claude: domestic mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons.”

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“We have not yet received any direct communication from the Department of the Army or the White House regarding the status of negotiations,” the company said.

Anthropic added that it had “made a good faith effort to reach an agreement with the Department of the Army,” and said it supports all lawful uses of AI for national security purposes, with two requested exceptions, and “has not impacted a single government mission to date.”

The company also said the supply chain risk designation “is an unprecedented measure, historically reserved only for adversaries of the United States and never publicly applied to U.S. companies.”

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Altman said OpenAI will introduce additional safety measures to ensure models “work as they should” and will only operate on a cloud network.

“We are asking the DoW to provide similar terms to all AI companies, which, in our opinion, everyone should be willing to accept,” Altman continued. “We have expressed a strong desire to see the situation de-escalate from legal and government action and move toward a reasonable agreement.”

FOX Business’ Brie Stimson contributed to this report.