OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly defended his company’s new deal with the Pentagon on Saturday, just a day after the president. Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to cut ties with rival Anthropic.
Hours after the United States and Israel launched a joint strike against Iran, Altman spoke to X to answer questions about the agreement allowing the Department of War (DoW) to deploy OpenAI. artificial intelligence (AI) models on its classifieds network.
“I would like to answer questions about our work with the DoW and our thinking over the past few days,” he said.
In announcing the deal Friday evening, Altman wrote: “AI safety and broad distribution of benefits are central to our mission. Two of our most important security principles are a prohibition on domestic mass surveillance and human accountability for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we enshrine them in our agreement.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman defended his company’s deal with the Pentagon after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to phase out rival Anthropic. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The OpenAI agreement has been reached Trump led every federal agency to stop using Anthropic technology, setting a six-month phase-out period and escalating the dispute over how AI should be used in military operations.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was directing the department to designate Anthropic a “national security supply chain risk.”
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic had refused DoW requests to allow its AI to be used for “any lawful purposes,” citing concerns about “mass domestic surveillance” and “fully autonomous weapons.”
When asked why the DoW accepted OpenAI but not Anthropic, Altman responded: “Anthropic seemed more focused on specific prohibitions in the contract, rather than citing applicable laws, which we felt comfortable with.” » He added that Anthropic “may have wanted more operational control than we do.”
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President Donald Trump has ordered federal agencies to cut ties with Anthropic, intensifying the dispute over the military use of AI. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Altman said the DoW issued no explicit or implicit threats before the deal was struck, adding that Pentagon officials were “really surprised that we were willing to consider” classified work.
He said OpenAI initially planned to do only unclassified work with the Pentagon, but discussions accelerated this week.
“We thought the DoW clearly needed an AI partner, and doing classified work is clearly much more complex. We said no to previous agreements Anthropic made in classified contexts. We began talking with the DoW several months ago about our unclassified work. This week, things kicked into high gear on the classified side. We found the DoW to be flexible on what we needed, and we want to support them in their very important mission,” he said. Altman said.
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Sam Altman answered questions on X regarding OpenAI’s classified work with the Department of War. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Altman also responded to criticism that the deal seemed rushed, saying OpenAI acted quickly to “defuse the situation.”
“I think the current direction of things is dangerous for Anthropic, healthy competition and for the United States,” he said. “We negotiated to ensure that similar conditions would be offered to all other AI labs”.
Altman acknowledged that he remains concerned that future legal litigation could expose OpenAI to the same supply chain risk designation imposed on Anthropic.
“If we have to take on this fight, we will, but it clearly puts us at some risk,” he said. “I remain hopeful that this issue will be resolved, and part of the reason we wanted to act quickly was to help increase the chances of that happening.”
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman arrives to testify before a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing titled “Winning the Race to AI: Strengthening America’s Computing and Innovation Capabilities” on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, May 8. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters / Reuters)
Anthropic previously told Fox News Digital that Hegseth’s designation of the company as a supply chain risk “follows months of negotiations that resulted in an impasse on two exceptions we requested to the lawful use of our AI model, Claude: massive domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons.”
Altman also addressed the question of whether the federal government might attempt to nationalize OpenAI or other AI developments.
“I obviously don’t know; I’ve certainly thought about it…but it doesn’t seem very likely given the current trajectory,” he said. “That said, I think a close partnership between governments and the companies developing this technology is extremely important.”
Altman said the most difficult aspect of the reconciliation deal concerned “non-domestic surveillance.”
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“I have accepted that the U.S. military does some surveillance of foreigners, and I know foreign governments try to do that to us, but I still don’t like it,” he said. “I think it’s very important for society to think about the consequences of this; perhaps the principle that I care about most about AI is that it’s being democratized, and I see surveillance making things worse.”
“On the other hand, I also respect the democratic process. I don’t think it’s up to me to decide,” he added.
