US President Donald Trump has said he would direct all federal agencies to not use AI tools from AI developer Anthropic, following a disagreement on use of Anthropic’s model by the military.
The sequence of events which started unravelling on Thursday took a new turn recently as Anthropic competitor OpenAI signed a deal with the US Department of War for use of its model.
A few days ago, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth over demands that Anthropic accept “any lawful use” of its tools. Amodei said that it did not want its models, including Claude to be deployed for “mass domestic surveillance” and to control “fully autonomous weapons". This unleashed a chain of events.
It is to be noted that Anthropic has been working closely with the Department of War and US intelligence, and was among the first AI frontier labs whose models were deployed by the government’s classified networks. Anthropic offered custom models to its national security customers and Claude was deployed extensively by the Department of War and other security agencies for mission-critical applications, including intelligence analysis, modelling and simulation, operational planning, cyber operations, and more.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Anthropic’s contract with the Pentagon is worth $200 million.
As a result of Amodei’s stance, the Department of War has threatened to blacklist Anthropic, with Trump directing all federal agencies to not work with Anthropic.
“We don't need it, we don't want it, and will not do business with them again!" Trump said on Truth Social on Friday.
The Department of War has also threatened to label Anthropic’s models as “supply-chain risk". Amodei said that the company will challenge the government's decision, calling it retaliatory and punitive. In his blog on Thursday, Amodei made his stance clear: “Regardless, these threats do not change our position: We cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”
While this was unfolding, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said on Friday night that the company has reached an agreement with the Pentagon for use of its AI models.
In a post on X, Altman said that the Department of War agrees with the principles of prohibition of domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including autonomous weapon systems.
“The Department of War agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement,” said Altman.
For now, it has worked in favour of OpenAI and serves as a precedent for other AI frontier labs like xAI likely to court the US defence department for use of their model.
First Published: Mar 01, 2026, 11:40
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