Trump orders government to stop using Anthropic in battle against AI use
Kali Hayes,Technology journalistAnd
Lily Jamali,North America Technology Correspondent
Reuters
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would order all federal agencies to immediately stop using technology from AI developer Anthropic.
“We don’t need them, we don’t want them and we won’t do business with them again!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social article.
Anthropic is mired in a dispute with the White House after refuse requests that he agrees to give to the American army unhindered access to its AI tools. This refusal led US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to declare that he considered Anthropic a “supply chain risk”.
This label would make Anthropic the first American company to publicly benefit from such treatment. The company said late Friday that it would “challenge any designation of supply chain risk in court.”
Trump’s directive came after days of exchanges, public and private, between the company’s CEO, Dario Amodei, and Hegseth.
The company has raised concerns in recent months that the government could use its AI tools, like Claude, in what it describes as “mass surveillance” and “fully autonomous weapons.”
Hegseth and the Pentagon insisted that Anthropic accept “any lawful use” of its tools and technology.
Trump and Hegseth announced their decisions against Anthropic on social media, with the Defense Secretary saying on
Anthropic said Friday evening that it had not yet heard anything directly from the White House or the military “on the status of our negotiations.”
Still, the company said being designated a supply chain risk “would be both legally unfounded and would set a dangerous precedent for any U.S. company that negotiates with the government.”
“No amount of intimidation or punishment from the War Department will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons,” the company added.
The War Department is a secondary name Trump gave to the Department of Defense.
Anthropic’s tools will be phased out of all government work over the next six months, Trump said.
As for Anthropic’s other customers, the company said the only impact would be on companies that also have contracts with the military. These companies may need to stop using Anthropic for work performed on behalf of the department.
Prior to Trump’s statement, Anthropic said that if the US Department of Defense chose to stop using the company’s tools, the company would “work to enable a smooth transition to another supplier.”
Still, Trump chastised the company on his Truth Social platform, saying Anthropic “better get their act together and be helpful during this phase-out period, or I will use the full power of the presidency to force them to comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow.”
Anthropic has been used by the US government and military since 2024 and was the first advanced AI company to deploy its tools in government agencies performing classified work.
Before Trump’s decision Friday, Anthropic had received support for its stance against the government.
OpenAI boss Sam Altman has offered his support to rival AI executive Amodei. He sent a memo to staff saying he had the same “red lines” when it came to applying the companies’ products.
In the memo seen by the BBC, Altman said any OpenAI contract for the military would also reject uses that are “illegal or unsuitable for cloud deployments, such as domestic surveillance and autonomous offensive weapons.”
Amodei is a long-time figure in the tech industry, who rose to prominence as one of OpenAI’s first employees. He and a handful of other OpenAI employees left the company to found Anthropic after disagreements with Altman.
Both startups now compete directly for users and enterprise customers with a scalable offering of chatbots, agents and other AI tools.
“I don’t really understand how things got to this point; I don’t know why Anthropic did its deal with Pentagon and Palantir the way they originally did,” Altman wrote in his company’s memo.
“But regardless of how we got here, this is no longer just an issue between Anthropic and the [Department of War] DoW; This is a topic that concerns the entire sector and it is important to clarify our position. »
Hegseth summoned Amodei to Washington DC for a meeting on Tuesday amid growing tensions. It resulted in two contradictory ultimatums if Anthropic refused to give free rein to its tools at the ministry.
Hegseth said he would invoke the Defense Production Act, allowing the government to use Anthropic’s products as it sees fit, and would consider that a “supply chain risk.”
On Thursday, Amodei said he would rather stop working with the Pentagon than accept such threats.
A former DoD official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the BBC that Anthropic appeared to have the upper hand in the fight.
“It’s great PR for them and they just don’t need the money,” the former official said.
Anthropic’s work with the Pentagon is part of a contract worth $200 million. The company’s most recent valuation took place earlier this month and puts the company’s value at $380 billion, based on its current revenue and expected future earnings.
The former official added that the Defense Department’s basis for threatening Anthropic with invoking the Defense Production Act and being labeled a supply chain risk was “extremely flimsy.”
